The Yugoslav Wars were a series of ethnically-basedwars and insurgencies fought from 1991 to 1999/2001[Note 1] in the former Yugoslavia. These wars accompanied and facilitated the breakup of the Yugoslav state, when its constituent republics declared independence, but the issues of ethnic minorities in the new countries (chiefly Serbs, Croats and Albanians) were still unresolved at the time the republics were recognized internationally. The wars are generally considered to be a series of separate but related military conflicts which occurred in, and affected, most of the former Yugoslav republics.[5][6][7]

Most wars ended through peace accords, involving full international recognition of new states, but with massive economic damage to the region. Initially the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) sought to preserve the unity of the whole of Yugoslavia by crushing the secessionist governments but it increasingly came under the influence of the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević that evoked Serbian nationalist rhetoric and was willing to use the Yugoslav cause to preserve the unity of Serbs in one state. As a result, the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Croats, Kosovar Albanians, Bosniaks, and ethnic Macedonians, and effectively became a Serb army.[8] According to the 1994 United Nations report, the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia, but to create a "Greater Serbia" from parts of Croatia and Bosnia.[9]

"Third Balkan War": a term suggested by British journalist Misha Glenny in the title of his book, alluding to the two previous Balkan Wars fought from 1912–13.[24] In fact, this term has been applied by some contemporary historians to World War I, because they see it as a direct sequel to the 1912–13 Balkan wars.[25]

Map of the six Yugoslav republics and autonomous provinces of the time.[26]

Clear ethnic conflict between the Yugoslav peoples only became prominent in the 20th century, beginning with tensions over the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in the early 1920s and escalating into violence between Serbs and Croats in the late 1920s after the assassination of Croatian politician Stjepan Radić. During World War II the Croatian Ustaše committed genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma, leading to later reprisals against Croats and Bosniaks. The Yugoslav Partisan movement was able to appeal to all groups, including Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks.[5][27] In Serbia and Serb-dominated territories, violent confrontations occurred, particularly between nationalists and non-nationalists who criticized the Serbian government and the Serb political entities in Bosnia and Croatia.[28] Serbs who publicly opposed the nationalist political climate during the Yugoslav wars were reportedly harassed, threatened, or killed.[28]

The nation of Yugoslavia was created in the aftermath of World War I, and it was mostly composed of South Slavic Christians, but the nation also had a substantial Muslim minority. This nation lasted from 1918 to 1941, when it was invaded by the Axis powers during World War II, which provided support to the Ustaše (founded in 1929), which conducted a genocidal campaign against Serbs, Jews and Roma inside its territory and the Chetniks who supported reinstating the Serbian royals. In 1945, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was established under Josip Broz Tito,[5] who maintained a strongly authoritarian leadership that suppressed nationalism.[29] After Tito's death, in the 1980s relations among the six republics of the SFRY deteriorated. Slovenia and Croatia desired greater autonomy within the Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal authority. As it became clearer that there was no solution agreeable to all parties, Slovenia and Croatia moved toward secession. Although tensions in Yugoslavia had been mounting since the early 1980s, it was 1990 that proved decisive. In the midst of economic hardship, Yugoslavia was facing rising nationalism among its various ethnic groups. By the early 1990s, there was no effective authority at the federal level. The Federal Presidency consisted of the representatives of the six republics, two provinces, and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). The communist leadership was divided along national lines.[30]

The representatives of Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro were replaced with loyalists of the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević. Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes[32] and was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, since all the other Yugoslav republics only had one vote. While Slovenia and Croatia wanted to allow a multi-party system, Serbia, led by Milošević, demanded an even more centralized federation and Serbia's dominant role in it.[30] At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, the Serbian-dominated assembly agreed to abolish the single-party system; however, Slobodan Milošević, the head of the Serbian Party branch (League of Communists of Serbia) used his influence to block and vote-down all other proposals from the Croatian and Slovene party delegates. This prompted the Croatian and Slovene delegations to walk out and thus the break-up of the party,[33] a symbolic event representing the end of "brotherhood and unity".

Upon Croatia and Slovenia declaring independence in 1991, the Yugoslav federal government attempted to forcibly halt the impending breakup of the country, with Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković declaring the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia to be illegal and contrary to the constitution of Yugoslavia, and declared support for the Yugoslav People's Army to secure the integral unity of Yugoslavia.[34]

According to Stephen A. Hart, author of Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941–1945, the ethnically mixed region of Dalmatia held close and amicable relations between the Croats and Serbs who lived there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many early proponents of a united Yugoslavia came from this region, such Ante Trumbić, a Croat from Dalmatia. However, by the time of the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, any hospitable relations between Croats and Serbs in Dalmatia had broken down, with Dalmatian Serbs fighting on the side of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

Even though the policies throughout the entire socialist period of Yugoslavia seemed to have been the same (namely that all Serbs should live in one state), Dejan Guzina argues that "different contexts in each of the subperiods of socialist Serbia and Yugoslavia yielded entirely different results (e.g., in favor of Yugoslavia, or in favor of a Greater Serbia)". He assumes that the Serbian policy changed from conservative–socialist at the beginning to xenophobic nationalist in the late 1980s and 1990s.[35]

The first of these conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War, was initiated by the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) on 26 June 1991 after the secession of Slovenia from the federation on 25 June 1991.[36][37]

Initially, the federal government ordered the Yugoslav People's Army to secure border crossings in Slovenia. Slovenian police and Slovenian Territorial Defence blockaded barracks and roads, leading to stand-offs and limited skirmishes around the republic. After several dozen casualties, the limited conflict was stopped through negotiation at Brioni on 7 July 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia agreed to a three-month moratorium on secession. The Federal army completely withdrew from Slovenia by 26 October 1991.

Fighting in this region had begun weeks prior to the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. The Croatian War of Independence began when Serbs in Croatia, who were opposed to Croatian independence, announced their secession from Croatia following Croatia's declaration of independence.

After the 1990 parliamentary elections, Franjo Tuđman came to power and became the first President of Croatia. He promoted nationalist policies and had a primary goal of the establishment of an independent Croatia. The new government proposed constitutional changes, removed Communist symbols and renamed many streets and squares.[38] In an attempt to counter changes made to the constitution, local Serb politicians organized a referendum on "Serb sovereignty and autonomy" in August 1990. Their boycott escalated into an insurrection in areas populated by ethnic Serbs, mostly around Knin, known as the Log Revolution.[39] Local police in Knin sided with the growing Serbian insurgency, while many government employees, mostly in police where commanding positions were mainly held by Serbs and Communists, lost their jobs.[40] The new Croatian constitution was ratified in December 1990, when the Serb National Council proclaimed the SAO Krajina.[41]

Ethnic tensions rose, fueled by propaganda in both Croatia and Serbia. On 2 May 1991, one of the first armed clashes between Serb paramilitaries and Croatian police occurred in the Battle of Borovo Selo.[42] On 19 May an independence referendum was held, which was largely boycotted by Croatian Serbs, and the majority voted in favour of the independence of Croatia.[43][41] Croatia declared independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. Due to the Brioni Agreement, a three-month moratorium was placed on the implementation of the decision that ended on 8 October.[44]

The armed incidents of early 1991 escalated into an all-out war over the summer, with fronts formed around the areas of the breakaway SAO Krajina. The JNA had disarmed the Territorial Units of Slovenia and Croatia prior to the declaration of independence, at the behest of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.[45][46] This was aggravated further by an arms embargo, imposed by the UN on Yugoslavia. The JNA was ostensibly ideologically unitarian, but its officer corps was predominantly staffed by Serbs or Montenegrins (70 percent).[47] As a result, the JNA opposed Croatian independence and sided with the Croatian Serb rebels. The Croatian Serb rebels were unaffected by the embargo as they had the support of and access to supplies of the JNA. By mid-July 1991, the JNA moved an estimated 70,000 troops to Croatia. The fighting rapidly escalated, eventually spanning hundreds of square kilometers from western Slavonia through Banija to Dalmatia.[48]

A JNA M-84 tank disabled by a mine laid by Croat soldiers in Vukovar in November 1991.

Border regions faced direct attacks from forces within Serbia and Montenegro. In August 1991, the Battle of Vukovar began, where fierce fighting took place with around 1,800 Croat fighters blocking JNA's advance into Slavonia. By the end of October, the town was almost completely devastated from land shelling and air bombardment.[49] The Siege of Dubrovnik started in October with the shelling of UNESCOworld heritage siteDubrovnik, where the international press was criticised for focusing on the city's architectural heritage, instead of reporting the destruction of Vukovar in which many civilians were killed.[50] On 18 November 1991 the battle of Vukovar ended after the city ran out of ammunition. The Ovčara massacre occurred shortly after Vukovar's capture by the JNA.[51] Meanwhile, control over central Croatia was seized by Croatian Serb forces in conjunction with the JNA Corps from Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the leadership of Ratko Mladić.[52]

In January 1992, the Vance Plan proclaimed UN controlled (UNPA) zones for Serbs in territory claimed by Serbian rebels as the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) and brought an end to major military operations, though sporadic artillery attacks on Croatian cities and occasional intrusions of Croatian forces into UNPA zones continued until 1995. The fighting in Croatia ended in mid-1995, after Operation Flash and Operation Storm. At the end of these operations, Croatia had reclaimed all of its territory except the UNPA Sector East portion of Slavonia, bordering Serbia. Most of the Serb population in the reclaimed areas became refugees, and these operations led to war crimes trials by the ICTY against elements of the Croatian military leadership, some of whom were found guilty of "war crimes and crimes against humanity".[53] The areas of "Sector East", unaffected by the Croatian military operations, came under UN administration (UNTAES), and were reintegrated to Croatia in 1998 under the terms of the Erdut Agreement.[54]

In 2007, Milan Martić, former president of RSK, was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment as part of a joint criminal enterprise against the non-Serb population of Croatia.[55]Milan Babić, the first President of RSK, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by the ICTY to 13 years in prison.[56]

The Yugoslav armed forces had disintegrated into a largely Serb-dominated military force. Opposed to the Bosnian-majority led government's agenda for independence, and along with other armed nationalist Serb militant forces, the JNA attempted to prevent Bosnian citizens from voting in the 1992 referendum on independence.[57] This did not succeed in persuading people not to vote and instead the intimidating atmosphere combined with a Serb boycott of the vote resulted in a resounding 99% vote in support for independence.[57]

A Serb woman mourns at a grave at the Lion's cemetery in Sarajevo, 1992

On 19 June 1992, the war in Bosnia broke out, though the Siege of Sarajevo had already begun in April after Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence. The conflict, typified by the years-long Sarajevo siege and Srebrenica, was by far the bloodiest and most widely covered of the Yugoslav wars. Bosnia's Serb faction led by ultra-nationalist Radovan Karadžić promised independence for all Serb areas of Bosnia from the majority-Bosniak government of Bosnia. To link the disjointed parts of territories populated by Serbs and areas claimed by Serbs, Karadžić pursued an agenda of systematic ethnic cleansing primarily against Bosnians through massacre and forced removal of Bosniak populations.[58]

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States reported in April 1995 that 90 percent of all the atrocities in the Yugoslav wars up to that point had been committed by Serb militants.[61] Most of these atrocities occurred in Bosnia. In 2004, the ICTY ruled that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide.[62] In May 2013, in a first-instance verdict, the ICTY convicted six Herzeg-Bosnia Officials for their participation in a joint criminal enterprise against Muslim population in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[63] On 24 March 2016, Radovan Karadžić, former president of Republika Srpska, was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment. On 22 November 2017, Ratko Mladić, former Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republika Srpska, was sentenced to life in prison by ICTY for 10 charges, one of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and four of violations of the laws or customs of war.

After its autonomy was quashed, Kosovo was faced with state organized oppression: from the early 1990s, Albanian language radio and television were restricted and newspapers shut down. Kosovar Albanians were fired in large numbers from public enterprises and institutions, including banks, hospitals, the post office and schools.[64] In June 1991 the University of Priština assembly and several faculty councils were dissolved and replaced by Serbs. Kosovar Albanian teachers were prevented from entering school premises for the new school year beginning in September 1991, forcing students to study at home.[64]

Later, Kosovar Albanians started an insurgency against Belgrade when the Kosovo Liberation Army was founded in 1996. Armed clashes between the two sides broke out in early 1998. A NATO-facilitated ceasefire was signed on 15 October, but both sides broke it two months later and fighting resumed. When the killing of 45 Kosovar Albanians in the Račak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly restrain the two sides. After the Rambouillet Accords broke down on 23 March with Yugoslav rejection of an external peacekeeping force, NATO prepared to install the peacekeepers by force. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia followed, an intervention against Serbian forces with a mainly bombing campaign, under the command of General Wesley Clark. Hostilities ended 2½ months later with the Kumanovo Agreement. Kosovo was placed under the governmental control of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and the military protection of Kosovo Force (KFOR). The 15-month war had left thousands of civilians killed on both sides and over a million displaced.[65]

The insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia was an armed conflict in Tetovo which began when the ethnic AlbanianNational Liberation Army (NLA) militant group began attacking the security forces of the Republic of Macedonia at the beginning of February 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement. The goal of the NLA was to give greater rights and autonomy to the country's Albanian minority, who make up 25.2% (54.7% of the population in Tetovo) of the population of Macedonia.[72][73] There were also claims that the group ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country,[74] although high-ranking NLA members have denied this.[72]

The United Nations Security Council had imposed an arms embargo in September 1991.[75] Nevertheless, various states had been engaged in, or facilitated, arms sales to the warring factions: Bulgaria, North Korea, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia were all export countries for weapons to the conflict; the headquarters for a huge logistics operation was in Vienna; financial transactions were executed by a Hungarian bank; arms smugglers used companies registered in the off-shore haven of Panama; and the United Kingdom sent military equipment and provided loans for arms purchases, as did Germany.[76] In 2012, Chile convicted nine people, including two retired generals, for their part in arms sales.[77]

After the fighting ended, millions of weapons were left with civilians who held on to them in case violence should resurface. These weapons later turned up on the black arms market of Europe.[78]

It is widely considered that mass murders against Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina escalated into genocide. On 18 December 1992, the United Nations General Assembly issued resolution 47/121 condemning "aggressive acts by the Serbian and Montenegrin forces to acquire more territories by force" and called such ethnic cleansing "a form of genocide".[79] In its report published on the 1 January 1993, Helsinki Watch was one of the first civil rights organisations that warned that "the extent of the violence and its selective nature along ethnic and religious lines suggest crimes of genocidal character against Muslim and, to a lesser extent, Croatian populations in Bosnia-Hercegovina".[80]

A trial took place before the International Court of Justice, following a 1993 suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia and Montenegro alleging genocide. The ICJ ruling of 26 February 2007 indirectly determined the war's nature to be international, though clearing Serbia of direct responsibility for the genocide committed by the forces of Republika Srpska. The ICJ concluded, however, that Serbia failed to prevent genocide committed by Serb forces and failed to punish those responsible, and bring them to justice.[81] A telegram sent to the White House on 8 February 1994 and penned by U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter W. Galbraith, stated that genocide was occurring. The telegram cited "constant and indiscriminate shelling and gunfire" of Sarajevo by Karadzic's Yugoslav People Army; the harassment of minority groups in Northern Bosnia "in an attempt to force them to leave"; and the use of detainees "to do dangerous work on the front lines" as evidence that genocide was being committed.[82] In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that "the Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing meet the terms defining genocide".[83]

Despite the evidence of many kinds of war crimes conducted simultaneously by different Serb forces in different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in Bijeljina, Sarajevo, Prijedor, Zvornik, Banja Luka, Višegrad and Foča, the judges ruled that the criteria for genocide with the specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy Bosnian Muslims were met only in Srebrenica or Eastern Bosnia in 1995.[81] The court concluded that other crimes, outside Srebrenica, committed during the 1992–1995 war, may amount to crimes against humanity according to the international law, but that these acts did not, in themselves, constitute genocide per se.[84]

The crime of genocide in the Srebrenica enclave was confirmed in several guilty verdicts handed down by the ICTY, most notably in the conviction of the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.[85]

Ethnic cleansing was a common phenomenon in the wars in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This entailed intimidation, forced expulsion, or killing of the unwanted ethnic group as well as the destruction of the places of worship, cemeteries and cultural and historical buildings of that ethnic group in order to alter the population composition of an area in the favour of another ethnic group which would become the majority. These examples of territorial nationalism and territorial aspirations are part of the goal of an ethnically pure nation-state.[86]

According to the ICTY, Serb forces deported at least 80–100,000 Croats in Croatia in 1991–92[91] and at least 700,000 Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.[92] Further hundreds of thousands of Muslims were forced out of their homes by the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[93] By one estimate, the Serb forces drove at least 700,000 Bosnian Muslims from the area of Bosnia under their control.[94]

The evidence of the magnitude of rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina prompted the ICTY to deal openly with these abuses.[100] Reports of sexual violence during the Bosnian War (1992–1995) and Kosovo War (1998–1999) perpetrated by the Serbian regular and irregular forces have been described as "especially alarming".[96] The NATO-led Kosovo Force documented rapes of Albanian, Roma and Serbian women by both Serbs and members of the Kosovo Liberation Army.[101]

Others have estimated that during the Bosnian War between 20,000 and 50,000 women, mainly Muslim, were raped.[102][103] There are few reports of rape and sexual assault between members of the same ethnic group.[104]

War rape in the Yugoslav Wars has often been characterized as a crime against humanity. Rape perpetrated by Serb forces served to destroy cultural and social ties of the victims and their communities.[105] Serbian policies allegedly urged soldiers to rape Bosnian women until they became pregnant as an attempt towards ethnic cleansing. Serbian soldiers hoped to force Bosnian women to carry Serbian children through repeated rape.[106] Often Bosnian women were held in captivity for an extended period of time and only released slightly before the birth of a child conceived of rape. The systematic rape of Bosnian women may have carried further-reaching repercussions than the initial displacement of rape victims. Stress, caused by the trauma of rape, coupled with the lack of access to reproductive health care often experienced by displaced peoples, lead to serious health risks for victimized women.[107]

During the Kosovo War thousands of Kosovo Albanian women and girls became victims of sexual violence. War rape was used as a weapon of war and an instrument of systematic ethnic cleansing; rape was used to terrorize the civilian population, extort money from families, and force people to flee their homes. According to a report by the Human Rights Watch group in 2000, rape in the Kosovo War can generally be subdivided into three categories: rapes in women's homes, rapes during flight, and rapes in detention.[108][109] The majority of the perpetrators were Serbian paramilitaries, but also included Serbian special police or Yugoslav army soldiers. Virtually all of the sexual assaults Human Rights Watch documented were gang rapes involving at least two perpetrators.[108][109] Since the end of the war, rapes of Serbian, Albanian, and Roma women by ethnic Albanians — sometimes by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) – have been documented.[108][109] Rapes occurred frequently in the presence, and with the acquiescence, of military officers. Soldiers, police, and paramilitaries often raped their victims in the full view of numerous witnesses.[95]

Some estimates put the number of killed in the Yugoslav Wars at 140,000.[1] The Humanitarian Law Center estimates that in the conflicts in former Yugoslav republics at least 130,000 people lost their lives.[2] Slovenia's involvement in the conflicts was brief, thus avoiding higher casualties, and around 70 people were killed in its ten-day conflict. The War in Croatia left an estimated 20,000 people dead. Bosnia and Herzegovina suffered the heaviest burden of the fighting: around 100,000 people were killed in the war. In the Kosovo conflict, around 13,500 were killed. Overall, no less than 133,000 people were killed in the post-Yugoslav conflicts in the 90s.[110] The highest death toll was in Sarajevo: with around 14,000 killed during the siege,[110] the city lost almost as many people as the entire war in Kosovo.

In relative and absolute numbers, Bosniaks suffered the heaviest losses: 64,036 people of their nationality were killed, which represents a death toll of over 3 % of their entire nation.[111] They experienced the worst plight in the Srebrenica massacre, where the mortality rate of the Bosniak men (irrespective of their age or civilian status) reached 33% in July 1995.[112]

It is estimated that the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo produced about 2.4 million refugees and an additional 2 million internally displaced persons.[113]

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina caused 2.2 million refugees or displaced, of which over half were Bosniaks.[114] Up until 2001, there were still 650,000 displaced Bosniaks, while 200,000 left the country permanently.[114]

The Kosovo War caused 862,979 Albanian refugees which were either expulsed from the Serb forces or fled from the battle front.[115] In addition, several hundreds of thousands were internally displaced, which means that, according the OSCE, almost 90 % of all Albanians were displaced from their homes in Kosovo by June 1999.[116] After the end of the war, Albanians returned, but over 200,000 Serbs, Romani and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo. By the end of 2000, Serbia thus became the host of 700,000 Serb refugees or internally displaced from Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia.[117]

From the perspective of asylum for internally displaced or refugees, Croatia took the brunt of the crisis. According to some sources, in 1992 Croatia was the host to almost 750,000 refugees or internally displaced, which represents a quota of almost 16 % of its population of 4.7 million inhabitants: these figures included 420 to 450,000 Bosnian refugees, 35,000 refugees from Serbia (mostly from Vojvodina and Kosovo) while a further 265,000 persons from other parts of Croatia itself were internally displaced. This would be equivalent of Germany being a host to 10 million displaced people or France to 8 million people. [118] Official UNHCR data indicate that Croatia was the host to 287,000 refugees and 344,000 internally displaced in 1993. This is a ratio of 64.7 refugees per 1000 inhabitants.[119] In its 1992 report, UNHCR placed Croatia #7 on its list of 50 most refugee burdened countries: it registered 316 thousand refugees, which is a ratio of 15:1 relative to its total population.[120] Together with those internally displaced, Croatia was the host to at least 648,000 people in need of an accommodation in 1992.[121] In comparison, Macedonia had 10.5 refugees per 1000 inhabitants in 1999.[122] Slovenia was the host to 45,000 refugees in 1993, which is 22.7 refugees per 1000 inhabitants.[123]Serbia and Montenegro were the host to 479,111 refugees in 1993, which is a ratio of 45.5 refugees per 1000 inhabitants. By 1998 this grew to 502,037 refugees (or 47.7 refugees per 1000 inhabitants). By 2000 the number of refugees fell to 484,391 persons, but the number of internally displaced grew to 267,500, or a combined total of 751,891 persons who were displaced and in need of an accommodation.[124]

Material and economic damages brought by the conflicts were catastrophic. Bosnia and Herzegovina had a GDP of between $8–9 billion before the war. The government estimated the overall war damages at $50–$70 billion. It also registered a GDP decline of 75% after the war.[132] Some 60% of the housing in the country has been either damaged or destroyed, which proved a problem when trying to bring all the refugees back home.[133] Bosnia also became the most landmine contaminated country of Europe: 1820 km2 of its territory were contaminated with these explosives, which represent 3.6% of its land surface. Between 3 and 6 million landmines were scattered throughout Bosnia. 5,000 people died from them, of which 1,520 after the war.[134]

In 1999, the Croatian Parliament passed a bill estimating war damages of the country at $37 billion.[135] The government alleges that between 1991 and April 1993 an estimated total of 210,000 buildings in Croatia (including schools, hospitals and refugee camps) were either damaged or destroyed from shelling by the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the JNA forces. Cities affected by the shelling were Karlovac, Gospić, Ogulin, Zadar, Biograd and others.[136] The Croatian government also acknowledged that 7,489 buildings belonging to Croatian Serbs were damaged or destroyed by explosives, arson or other deliberate means by the end of 1992. From January to March 1993 another 220 buildings were also damaged or destroyed. Criminal charges were brought against 126 Croats for such acts.[137]

Slovenia and Croatia declare independence in June, Macedonia in September. War in Slovenia lasts ten days, and results in dozens of fatalities. The Yugoslav army leaves Slovenia defeated, but supports rebel Serb forces in Croatia. The Croatian War of Independence begins in Croatia. Serb areas in Croatia declare independence, but are recognized only by Belgrade.

Vukovar is devastated by bombardments and shelling, and other cities such as Dubrovnik, Karlovac and Osijek sustain extensive damage.[141] Refugees from war zones overwhelm Croatia, while Europe is slow to accept refugees.

In Croatia, about 250,000 Croats and other non-Serbs forced from their homes or fled the violence.[142]

Bosnia declares independence. Bosnian war begins with the Bosnian Serb military leadership, most notably Ratko Mladić, trying to create a new, separate Serb state, Republika Srpska, through which they would conquer as much of Bosnia as possible for the vision of a Greater Serbia.[143]

The Yugoslav army retreats from Bosnia, but leaves its weapons to the army of Republika Srpska, which attacks poorly armed Bosnian cities of Zvornik, Kotor Varoš, Prijedor, Foča, Višegrad, Doboj. Prijedor ethnic cleansing and siege of Sarajevo start. Hundreds of thousands of non-Serbian refugees.

Croatia launches Operation Flash, recapturing a part of its territory, but tens of thousands of Serb civilians flee from the area. The RSK responds with the Zagreb rocket attack.

Croatia launches Operation Storm, reclaiming all UNPA zones except Eastern Slavonia, and resulting in exodus of 150,000–200,000 Serbs from the zones. Yugoslav forces do not intervene. War in Croatia ends.

Following Milošević's signing of an agreement, control of Kosovo is handed to the United Nations, but still remains a part of Yugoslavia's federation. After losing wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, numerous Serbs leave those regions to find refuge in remainder of Serbia. In 1999, Serbia was host to some 700,000 Serb refugees or internally displaced.[117]

Fresh fighting erupts between Albanians and Yugoslav security forces in Albanian populated areas outside of Kosovo, with the intent of joining three municipalities to Kosovo.

Slobodan Milošević is voted out of office, and Vojislav Koštunica becomes the new president of Yugoslavia. With Milošević ousted and a new government in place, FR Yugoslavia restores ties with the west. The political and economic sanctions are suspended in total, and FRY is reinstated in many political and economic organizations, as well as becoming a candidate for other collaborative efforts.

^"Tadic Case: The Verdict". Importantly, the objectives remained the same: to create an ethnically pure Serb State by uniting Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and extending that State from the FRY […] to the Croatian Krajina along the important logistics and supply line that went through opstina Prijedor, thereby necessitating the expulsion of the non-Serb population of the opstina.

1.
Breakup of Yugoslavia
–
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, in addition, two autonomous provinces were established within Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo. Each of the republics had its own branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia party and a ruling elite, after his death in 1980, the weakened system of federal government was left unable to cope with rising economic and political challenges. In the 1980s, Kosovo Albanians started to demand that their autonomous province be granted the status of a constituent republic, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolved in 1990 along federal lines. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated, in 1991, one republic after another proclaimed independence, but the status of Serb minorities outside Serbia was left unsolved. Before World War II, major tensions arose from the first, monarchist Yugoslavias multi-ethnic make-up and relative political, fundamental to the tensions were the different concepts of the new state. The Croats and Slovenes envisaged a federal model where they would enjoy greater autonomy than they had as a crown land under Austria-Hungary. Under Austria-Hungary, both Slovenes and Croats enjoyed autonomy with free hands only in education, law, religion, and 45% of taxes. The Serbs tended to view the territories as a just reward for their support of the allies in World War I, the assassination and human rights abuses were subject of concern for the Human Rights League and precipitated voices of protest from intellectuals, including Albert Einstein. It was in this environment of oppression that the insurgent group. During World War II, the tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis forces which established a Croat puppet state spanning much of present-day Croatia and Bosnia. The Axis powers installed the Ustaše as the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustaše resolved that the Serbian minority were a fifth column of Serbian expansionism, and pursued a policy of persecution against the Serbs. The policy dictated that one-third of the Serbian minority were to be killed, one-third expelled, both Croats and Muslims were recruited as soldiers by the SS. At the same time, former royalist, General Milan Nedić, was installed by the Axis as head of the government and local Serbs were recruited into the Gestapo. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II was 1,704,000, subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million. Of that number,330,000 to 390,000 ethnic Serbs perished from all causes in Croatia and Bosnia, Yugoslavia was in its heyday a regional industrial power and an economic success. From 1960 to 1980, annual gross domestic product growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, literacy was 91 percent, Yugoslavia was a unique state, straddling both the East and West

2.
Yugoslav People's Army
–
The Yugoslav Peoples Army, also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army or simply by the initialism JNA, was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The origins of the JNA can be found in the Yugoslav Partisan units of World War II, after the Yugoslav Partisans liberated the country from the Axis Powers, that date was officially celebrated as the Day of the Army in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In March 1945, the NOVJ was renamed the Yugoslav Army and, on its 10th anniversary, on 22 December 1951, the JNA consisted of the ground forces, air force and navy. The regions were, Belgrade, Zagreb, Skopje and Split Naval Region, of the JNAs 180,000 soldiers, more than 100,000 were conscripts. In 1990, the army had completed a major overhaul of its basic force structure. It eliminated its old divisional infantry organization and established the brigade as the largest operational unit, the army converted ten of twelve infantry divisions into twenty-nine tank, mechanized and mountain infantry brigades with integral artillery, air defense and anti-tank regiments. One airborne brigade was organized before 1990, the change created many senior field command positions that would develop relatively young and talented officers. The brigade structure had advantages at a time of declining manpower, the arms industry was dominant in the Yugoslavian economy. With annual exports of $3 billion, it was twice as large as the second largest industry and it had modern infrastructure with underground air bases and control centres in several mountains. The biggest and best known installation was the Željava Air Base, also known as the Bihać Underground Integrated Radar Control and Surveillance Centre and Air Base, in Bosnia, another important manufacturer was Utva in Serbia. The Yugoslav military-industrial complex produced tanks, armored vehicles, various pieces, anti-aircraft weapons, as well as various types of infantry weapons. The ground forces led in number of personnel, in 1991 there were about 140,000 active-duty soldiers, and over a million trained reservists could be mobilized in wartime. Each of the Yugoslav constituent republics had its own territorial defence forces which in wartime were subordinate to supreme command as an part of the defence system. The territorial defence was made up of conscripts, they were occasionally called up for war exercises. The ground forces were organised into infantry, armour, artillery, the Yugoslav Air Force had about 32,000 personnel including 4,000 conscripts, and operated over 400 aircraft and 200 helicopters. It was responsible for transport, reconnaissance, and rotary-wing aircraft as well as the air defence system. The primary air force missions were to contest enemy efforts to establish air supremacy over Yugoslavia and to support the operations of the ground forces. Most aircraft were produced in Yugoslavia, missiles were produced domestically and supplied by the Soviet Union

3.
Ten-Day War
–
The Ten-Day War or the Slovenian Independence War, also the Weekend War was a brief war of independence that followed the Slovenian declaration of independence on 25 June 1991. It was fought between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Yugoslav Peoples Army and it lasted from 27 June 1991 until 6 July 1991, when the Brioni Accords were signed. It marked the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars, following the death of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito in 1980, underlying political, ethnic, religious, and economic tensions within Yugoslavia surfaced. A series of disagreements among delegates persisted until four of the six republics each made the decision to secede from Yugoslavia, supported by Germany and the Vatican, Slovenia was among those republics aiming for independence. In April 1990, Slovenia held its first democratic multi-party elections, on 23 December 1990, Slovenia held a referendum, which passed with 88. 5% of overall electorate supporting independence, with a turnout of 93. 3%. The Slovenian government was aware that the federal government in Belgrade might seek to use military force to quash Slovenias move towards independence. Immediately after the Slovenian elections, the Yugoslav Peoples Army announced a new doctrine that would apply across the country. The Tito-era doctrine of General Peoples Defence, in each republic maintained a Territorial Defence Force, was to be replaced by a centrally directed system of defence. The republics would lose their role in matters, and their TOs would be disarmed and subordinated to YPA headquarters in Belgrade. The Slovenian government resisted these moves, and successfully ensured that the majority of Slovenian Territorial Defence equipment was out of the hands of the YPA. It also declared in an amendment passed on 28 September 1990 that its TO would be under the sole command of the Slovenian government. At the same time, the Slovenian government set up a secret alternative command structure and this was an existing but antiquated institution, unique to Slovenia, which was intended to enable the republic to form an ad hoc defence structure, akin to a Home Guard. It was of importance prior to 1990, with antiquated weapons. However, the DEMOS-led government realised that the MSNZ could be adapted to provide an organisation to the TO that would be entirely in the hands of the Slovenian government. When the YPA tried to control of the Slovenian Territorial Defence. The Slovenes were aware that they would not be able to deter the YPA forces for a period of time. Under Defence Minister Janez Janša, they adopted a strategy based on an asymmetric warfare approach, TO units would carry out a guerrilla campaign, using anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft missiles to ambush YPA units. Hit-and-run and delaying tactics were to be preferred and frontal clashes were to be avoided since in such situations the YPAs superior firepower would have been difficult to overcome

4.
Battle of Vukovar
–
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav Peoples Army, supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats, Serbs, as Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbias President Slobodan Milošević and Croatias President Franjo Tuđman began pursuing nationalist politics. In 1990, an insurrection was started by Croatian Serb militias, supported by the Serbian government and paramilitary groups. The JNA began to intervene in favour of the rebellion, in August, the JNA launched a full-scale attack against Croatian-held territory in eastern Slavonia, including Vukovar. During the battle, shells and rockets were fired into the town at a rate of up to 12,000 a day. At the time, it was the fiercest and most protracted battle seen in Europe since 1945, when Vukovar fell on 18 November 1991, several hundred soldiers and civilians were massacred by Serb forces and at least 20,000 inhabitants were expelled. Most of Vukovar was ethnically cleansed of its population and became part of the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina. Several Serb military and political officials, including Milošević, were indicted and in some cases jailed for war crimes committed during. The battle exhausted the JNA and proved a point in the Croatian war. A ceasefire was declared a few weeks later, Vukovar remained in Serb hands until 1998, when it was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia. It has since been rebuilt but has less than half of its pre-war population and its two principal ethnic communities remain deeply divided and it has not regained its former prosperity. Vukovar is an important regional centre on Croatias eastern border, situated in eastern Slavonia on the west bank of the Danube river. The area has a population of Croats, Serbs, Hungarians, Slovaks, Ruthenians and many other nationalities. It was one of the wealthiest areas of Yugoslavia before the war, Vukovars long-standing prosperity was reflected in one of Croatias finest ensembles of Baroque architecture. The region underwent major changes following the Second World War. The towns population was 47 percent Croat and 32.3 percent Serb and this left a large Serb minority in Croatian territory. In 1990, Slovenia and Croatia held elections that ended communist rule, in Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union party of Franjo Tuđman took office, with Tuđman as President. Tuđmans programme was opposed by members of Croatias Serb minority

5.
Siege of Dubrovnik
–
The JNA attacks and bombardment of Dubrovnik, including the Old Town—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—culminated on 6 December 1991. Fighting between the HV and the Yugoslav troops east of Dubrovnik gradually died down, the siege and a naval blockade by the Yugoslav Navy caused the deaths of between 82 and 88 Croatian civilians and 194 Croatian military personnel. By the end of 1992, when the region was recaptured by the HV in Operation Tiger. The offensive displaced 15,000 refugees—mainly from Konavle—who fled to Dubrovnik, approximately 16,000 refugees were evacuated from Dubrovnik by sea and the city was resupplied by blockade-evading runabouts and a convoy of civilian vessels. 11,425 buildings suffered a degree of damage and numerous homes, businesses, Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović apologized for the attack in 2000, eliciting an angry response from his political opponents and from Serbia. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted two Yugoslav officers for their involvement in the siege and handed a third over to Serbia for prosecution, in addition, Montenegro convicted four former JNA soldiers with prisoner abuse at the Morinj camp. Croatia also charged several former JNA or Yugoslav Navy officers and a former Bosnian Serb leader with war crimes and these areas were subsequently named the Republic of Serbian Krajina and after declaring its intention to integrate with Serbia, the Government of Croatia declared the RSK a rebellion. By March 1991, the conflict had escalated and the Croatian War of Independence erupted, in June 1991, Croatia declared its independence as Yugoslavia disintegrated. A three-month moratorium followed, after which the decision came into effect on 8 October, the RSK then initiated a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Croat civilians, expelling most non-Serbs by early 1993. By November 1993, less than 400 ethnic Croats remained in the United Nations protected area known as Sector South, and a further 1,500 –2,000 remained in Sector North. As the Yugoslav Peoples Army increasingly supported the RSK and the Croatian Police was unable to cope with the situation, in November, the ZNG was renamed the Croatian Army. Dubrovnik is the southernmost major Croatian city and it is located on the Adriatic Sea coast. In 1991, the city had a population of approximately 50,000, Croatian territory surrounding the city stretches from the Pelješac peninsula to the west and the Prevlaka peninsula in the east at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor on the border with Montenegro. This territory is very narrow, especially near Dubrovnik itself, General Jevrem Cokić submitted the plan of the Dubrovnik offensive to Adžić for his approval. Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Đukanović stated that Croatian borders needed be revised, the newspaper Pobjeda was the most significant media source that contributed to the spread of the propaganda. On 16 September 1991, the JNA mobilized in Montenegro citing the deteriorating situation in Croatia, despite a radio broadcast appeal by the JNA 2nd Titograd Corps on 17 September, considerable numbers of reservists refused to respond to the call-up. On 18 September, Đukanović threatened harsh punishment of deserters and those refusing to respond to the mobilization, the mobilization and the propaganda were in contrast with assurances from Yugoslav federal authorities in Belgrade that there would be no attack against Dubrovnik. The JNAs strategic plan to defeat Croatia included an offensive to cut off the southernmost parts of Croatia, including Dubrovnik, on 23 September, JNA artillery attacked the village of Vitaljina in the eastern part of Konavle and Brgat to the east of Dubrovnik

6.
Srebrenica massacre
–
The killings were perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The Scorpions, a unit from Serbia, who had been part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991. In April 1993 the United Nations had declared the besieged enclave of Srebrenica—in the Drina Valley of northeastern Bosnia—a safe area under UN protection, however, in July 1995, UNPROFORs 370 Dutchbat soldiers in Srebrenica failed to prevent the towns capture by the VRS—and the subsequent massacre. In 2004, in a ruling on the case of Prosecutor v. The ruling was upheld by the International Court of Justice in 2007. The Preliminary List of People Missing or Killed in Srebrenica compiled by the Bosnian Federal Commission of Missing Persons contains 8,373 names, in April 2013, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić officially apologised for the massacre, although he stopped short of calling it genocide. In 2013 and 2014, the Netherlands was found liable in its own supreme court, on 8 July 2015, Russia, at the request of the Republika Srpska and Serbia, vetoed a UN resolution condemning the Srebrenica massacre as genocide. Serbia called the resolution anti-Serb, while both European and US governments affirmed that the crimes were genocide, on 9 July 2015, both the European Parliament and the U. S. Congress adopted resolutions reaffirming the description of the crime as genocide. The multiethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was mainly inhabited by Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs, following a declaration of national sovereignty on 15 October 1991 as the former Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, a referendum for independence was held on 29 February 1992. The result, in favour of independence, was rejected by the representatives of the Bosnian Serbs who had boycotted the referendum. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formally recognised by the European Community and they thus proceeded with the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from Bosniak ethnic territories in Eastern Bosnia and Central Podrinje. Men and women were separated, with many of the men detained in the former KP Dom prison, in neighbouring Bratunac, Bosniaks were either killed or forced to flee to Srebrenica, resulting in 1,156 deaths, according to Bosnian government data. Thousands of Bosniaks were also killed in Foča, Zvornik, Cerska, each onslaught followed a similar pattern. Serb soldiers and paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet, called upon the population to surrender their weapons, in most cases, they then entered the village or hamlet, expelled or killed the population, who offered no significant resistance, and destroyed their homes. During this period, Srebrenica was subjected to shelling from all directions on a daily basis. Potočari in particular was a target for Serb artillery and infantry because it was a sensitive point in the defence line around Srebrenica. Other Bosnian Muslim settlements were attacked as well. All this resulted in a number of refugees and casualties

7.
Sarajevo
–
Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its current administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area, including Sarajevo Canton and East Sarajevo is home to 688,384 inhabitants, nestled within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Due to its long and rich history of religious and cultural variety and it is the only major European city to have a mosque, Catholic church, Orthodox church and synagogue within the same neighbourhood. Although settlement in the area back to prehistoric times, the modern city arose as an Ottoman stronghold in the 15th century. Sarajevo has attracted international attention several times throughout its history, in 1885, Sarajevo was the first city in Europe and the second city in the world to have a full-time electric tram network running through the city, following San Francisco. For nearly four years, from 1992 to 1996, the city suffered the longest siege of a city in the history of warfare during the Bosnian War. Sarajevo has been undergoing reconstruction, and is the fastest growing city in Bosnia. The travel guide series, Lonely Planet, has named Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world, in 2011, Sarajevo was nominated to be the European Capital of Culture in 2014 and will be hosting the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2019. The earliest known name for the large central Bosnian region of todays Sarajevo is Vrhbosna, Sarajevo is a slavicized word based on saray, the Turkish word for palace. The evo portion may come from the term saray ovası first recorded in 1455, the first mention of name Sarajevo was in 1507 letter written by Feriz Beg. The earliest is Šeher, which is the term Isa-Beg Ishaković used to describe the town he was going to build and it is a Turkish word meaning an advanced city of key importance which in turn comes from Persian, شهر‎‎ shahr. As Sarajevo developed, numerous nicknames came from comparisons to other cities in the Islamic world, the most popular of these was European Jerusalem. Some argue that a correct translation of saray is government office or house. Saray is a word in Turkish for a palace or mansion. Sarajevo is located near the center of the triangular-shaped Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is situated 518 meters above sea level and lies in the Sarajevo valley, the valley itself once formed a vast expanse of greenery, but gave way to urban expansion and development in the post-World War II era. The city is surrounded by forested hills and five major mountains. The last four are known as the Olympic Mountains of Sarajevo

8.
Siege of Sarajevo
–
The Siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. The siege lasted three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a longer than the Siege of Leningrad. From there they assaulted the city with artillery, tanks and small arms, from 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. The Bosnian government defence forces inside the city, numbering some 70,000 troops, were poorly equipped. A total of 13,952 people were killed during the siege, the ARBiH suffered 6,137 fatalities, while Bosnian Serb military casualties numbered 2,241 soldiers killed. The 1991 census indicates that before the siege the city and its surrounding areas had a population of 525,980, there are estimates that prior to the siege the population in the city proper was 435,000. The estimates of the number of living in Sarajevo after the siege ranged from between 300,000 and 380,000. After the war, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted two Serb officials for numerous counts of crimes against humanity committed during the siege, stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were sentenced to life imprisonment and 29 years imprisonment respectively. One of the 11 indictments against Radovan Karadžić, the president of the Republika Srpska, is for the siege. When Yugoslavias longtime leader Marshal Tito died in 1980 this policy of containment underwent a dramatic reversal, nationalism experienced a renaissance in the 1980s after violence erupted in Kosovo. While the goal of Serbian nationalists was the centralisation of a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia aspired to federalisation, croatia and Slovenias subsequent declarations of independence and the warfare that ensued placed Bosnia and Herzegovina and its three constituent peoples in an awkward position. A significant split soon developed on the issue of whether to stay with the Yugoslav federation or to seek independence and this Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 9 January 1992, which became the Republika Srpska in August 1992. A declaration of Bosnian sovereignty on 15 October 1991 was followed by a referendum for independence from Yugoslavia on 29 February and 1 March 1992 and this referendum was boycotted by the vast majority of the Serbs. The turnout in the referendum was 63. 4% and 99. 7% of voters voted for independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence on 3 March 1992 and these minor attacks were followed by much more serious Serb artillery attacks on Neum on 19 March, on Bosanski Brod on 24 and 30 March 1992 on Bijeljina. On 1 March 1992, an Orthodox wedding in downtown Sarajevo was attacked, nikola Gardović, the grooms father, was killed. It continued through the run-up to Bosnia and Herzegovinas recognition as an independent state, on 5 April, ethnic Serb policemen attacked police stations and then an Interior Ministry training school. The attack killed two officers and one civilian, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared a state of emergency the following day

9.
Slovenia
–
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and it covers 20,273 square kilometers and has a population of 2.06 million. It is a republic and a member of the United Nations, European Union. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana, additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by a significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a river network, a rich aquifer system. Over half of the territory is covered by forest, the human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven. Slovenia has historically been the crossroads of South Slavic, Germanic, Romance, although the population is not homogeneous, the majority is Slovene. Slovene is the language throughout the country. Slovenia is a largely secularized country, but its culture and identity have been influenced by Catholicism as well as Lutheranism. The economy of Slovenia is small, open, and export-oriented and has strongly influenced by international conditions. It has been hurt by the Eurozone crisis, started in the late 2000s. The main economic field is services, followed by industry and construction, Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In October 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the State of Slovenes, Croats, in December 1918, they merged with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During World War II, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy, and Hungary, with a tiny area transferred to the Independent State of Croatia, in June 1991, after the introduction of multi-party representative democracy, Slovenia split from Yugoslavia and became an independent country. Present-day Slovenia has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and there is evidence of habitation from around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, dating from 43100 ±700 BP, in the 1920s and 1930s, artifacts belonging to the Cro-Magnon such as pierced bones, bone points, and needle were found by archaeologist Srečko Brodar in Potok Cave. It shows that wooden wheels appeared almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia and Europe, in the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archaeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found, particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them a number of situlas in Novo Mesto, in the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC

10.
Croatia
–
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The countrys population is 4.28 million, most of whom are Croats, the Croats arrived in the area of present-day Croatia during the early part of the 7th century AD. They organised the state into two duchies by the 9th century, tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary, a fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia declared independence, which came wholly into effect on 8 October of the same year, the Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration. A unitary state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system, the International Monetary Fund classified Croatia as an emerging and developing economy, and the World Bank identified it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the European Union, United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, the service sector dominates Croatias economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture. Tourism is a significant source of revenue during the summer, with Croatia ranked the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, the state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatias most important trading partner, since 2000, the Croatian government constantly invests in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Internal sources produce a significant portion of energy in Croatia, the rest is imported, the origin of the name is uncertain, but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of variable stem, the first attestation of the Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir from the year 852. The original is lost, and just a 1568 copy is preserved—leading to doubts over the authenticity of the claim, the oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir Inscription, where Duke Branimir is styled as Dux Cruatorvm. The inscription is not believed to be dated accurately, but is likely to be from during the period of 879–892, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period

11.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
–
Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in short, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city, in the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the northeast is predominantly flatland. The inland is a larger region and has a moderate continental climate, with hot summers and cold. The southern tip of the country has a Mediterranean climate and plain topography, Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region that traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age, during and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally, politically, and socially, the country has a rich history, the Ottomans brought Islam to the region, and altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country. This was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which lasted up until World War I. In the interwar period, Bosnia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after World War II, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the country proclaimed independence in 1992, which was followed by the Bosnian War, lasting until late 1995. The country is home to three ethnic groups or, officially, constituent peoples, as specified in the constitution. Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, with Serbs second and Croats third, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, is identified in English as a Bosnian. The terms Herzegovinian and Bosnian are maintained as a rather than ethnic distinction. Moreover, the country was simply called Bosnia until the Austro-Hungarian occupation at the end of the 19th century, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member Presidency composed of a member of each major ethnic group. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is itself complex and consists of 10 cantons, additionally, the country has been a member of the Council of Europe since April 2002 and a founding member of the Mediterranean Union upon its establishment in July 2008. The name is believed to have derived from the hydronym of the river Bosna coursing through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer the name Bosna could be derived from Illyrian Bass-an-as which would be a diversion of the Proto-Indo-European root bos or bogh, meaning the running water. According to English medievalist William Miller the Slavic settlers in Bosnia adapted the Latin designation Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna, the name Herzegovina originates from Bosnian magnate Stephen Vukčić Kosačas title, Herceg of Hum and the Coast. Hum, formerly Zahumlje, was a medieval principality that was conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. Bosnia is located in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia to the north and west, Serbia to the east and it has a coastline about 20 kilometres long surrounding the city of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E, the countrys name comes from the two regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have a very vaguely defined border between them

12.
Serbia
–
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia numbers around 7 million residents, and its capital, Belgrade, following the Slavic migrations to the Balkans from the 6th century onwards, Serbs established several states in the early Middle Ages. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by Rome and the Byzantine Empire in 1217, in the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the regions first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro which dissolved peacefully in 2006, in 2008 the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of organizations such as the UN, CoE, OSCE, PfP, BSEC. An EU membership candidate since 2012, Serbia has been negotiating its EU accession since January 2014, the country is acceding to the WTO and is a militarily neutral state. Serbia is an income economy with dominant service sector, followed by the industrial sector. The country ranks high on the Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index, relatively high on the Human Development Index, located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe, Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total of 88,361 km2, which places it at 113th place in the world, with Kosovo excluded, the area is 77,474 km2. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km, all of Kosovos border with Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are under control of the Kosovo border police. The Pannonian Plain covers the third of the country while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of the part of the country, with the region of Šumadija at its heart. Mountains dominate the third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina, the Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system, elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres to the lowest point of just 17 metres near the Danube river at Prahovo. The largest lake is Đerdap Lake and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube, the climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea

13.
FYR Macedonia
–
Macedonia, officially the Republic of Macedonia, is a country in the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the states of the former Yugoslavia. A landlocked country, the Republic of Macedonia has borders with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, the countrys geography is defined primarily by mountains, valleys, and rivers. The capital and largest city, Skopje, is home to roughly a quarter of the nations 2.06 million inhabitants, the majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25 percent, followed by Turks, Romani, Serbs, Macedonias history dates back to antiquity, beginning with the kingdom of Paeonia, a Thracian polity. In the late sixth century BCE the area was incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Romans conquered the region in the second century BCE and made it part of the much larger province of Macedonia. Macedonia remained part of the Byzantine Empire, and was raided and settled by Slavic peoples beginning in the sixth century CE. Following centuries of contention between the Bulgarian and Byzantine empires, it came under Ottoman dominion from the 14th century. Between the late 19th and early 20th century, a distinct Macedonian identity emerged, although following the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, Macedonia remained a constituent socialist republic within Yugoslavia until its peaceful secession in 1991. Macedonia is a member of the UN and of the Council of Europe, since 2005 it has also been a candidate for joining the European Union and has applied for NATO membership. Although one of the poorest countries in Europe, Macedonia has made significant progress in developing an open, the countrys name derives from the Greek Μακεδονία, a kingdom named after the ancient Macedonians. The name is believed to have meant either highlanders or the tall ones. However, Robert S. P. Beekes supports that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology, the Republic of Macedonia roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Paeonia, which was located immediately north of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. In the late 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians under Darius the Great conquered the Paeonians, following the loss in the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 479 BC, the Persians eventually withdrew from their European territories, including from what is today the Republic of Macedonia. In 356 BC Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Upper Macedonia, the Romans established the Province of Macedonia in 146 BC. Roman expansion brought the Scupi area under Roman rule in the time of Domitian, and it fell within the Province of Moesia. Whilst Greek remained the dominant language in the part of the Roman empire. Slavic peoples settled in the Balkan region including Macedonia by the late 6th century AD, during the 580s, Byzantine literature attests to the Slavs raiding Byzantine territories in the region of Macedonia, later aided by Bulgars. Historical records document that in c.680 a group of Bulgars, Slavs and Byzantines led by a Bulgar called Kuber settled in the region of the Keramisian plain, presians reign apparently coincides with the extension of Bulgarian control over the Slavic tribes in and around Macedonia

14.
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
–
Covering an area of 255,804 km², the SFRY was bordered with Italy to the west, Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east and Albania and Greece to the south. In addition, it included two autonomous provinces within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina, the SFRY traces back to 29 June 1943 when the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia was formed during World War II. On 29 November 1945, the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed after the deposal of King Peter II thus ending the monarchy. Following the death of Tito on 4 May 1980, rising ethnic nationalism in the late 1980s led to dissidence among the multiple ethnicities within the constituent republics. This led to the federation collapsing along the borders, followed by the final downfall and breakup of the federation on 27 April 1992. The term former Yugoslavia is now commonly used retrospectively, the name Yugoslavia, an Anglicised transcription of Jugoslavija, is a composite word made-up of jug and slavija. The Serbo-Croatian, Slovene and Macedonian word jug means south, while slavija denotes a land of the Slavs, thus, a translation of Jugoslavija would be South-Slavia or Land of the South Slavs. The term is intended to denote the lands occupied by the six South Slavic nations, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Slovenes, the full official name of the federation varied significantly between 1945 and 1992. Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, the name deliberately left the republic-or-kingdom question open. In 1963, amid pervasive liberal constitutional reforms, the name Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was introduced, the state is most commonly referred to by the latter name, which it held for the longest period of all. The most common abbreviation is SFRY, though SFR Yugoslavia was also used in an official capacity, particularly by the media. On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany, by 17 April 1941, Yugoslav resistance was soon established in two forms, the Royal Yugoslav Army and the Yugoslav Partisans. The Partisan supreme commander was Josip Broz Tito, and under his command the movement soon began establishing liberated territories which attracted the attentions of the occupying forces. The coalition of parties, factions, and prominent individuals behind the movement was the Peoples Liberation Front. The Front formed a political body, the Anti-Fascist Council for the Peoples Liberation of Yugoslavia. The AVNOJ, which met for the first time in Partisan-liberated Bihać on 26 November 1942, during 1943, the Yugoslav Partisans began attracting serious attention from the Germans. In two major operations of Fall Weiss and Fall Schwartz, the Axis attempted to stamp-out the Yugoslav resistance once, on both occasions, despite heavy casualties, the Group succeeded in evading the trap and retreating to safety. The Partisans emerged stronger than before and now occupied a significant portion of Yugoslavia

15.
Yugoslavia
–
Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe during most of the 20th century. The Serbian royal House of Karađorđević became the Yugoslav royal dynasty, Yugoslavia gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris. The country was named after the South Slavic peoples and constituted their first union, following centuries in which the territories had been part of the Ottoman Empire, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929, it was invaded by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941. In 1943, a Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance, in 1944, the king recognised it as the legitimate government, but in November 1945 the monarchy was abolished. Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 and it acquired the territories of Istria, Rijeka, and Zadar from Italy. Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country as president until his death in 1980, in 1963, the country was renamed again as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The constituent six socialist republics that made up the country were the SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro, SR Serbia, and SR Slovenia. Serbia contained two Socialist Autonomous Provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, which after 1974 were largely equal to the members of the federation. After an economic and political crisis in the 1980s and the rise of nationalism, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics borders, at first into five countries, eventually, Serbia and Montenegro accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession. Serbia and Montenegro themselves broke up in 2006 and became independent states, the concept of Yugoslavia, as a single state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence through the Illyrian Movement of the 19th century. The name was created by the combination of the Slavic words jug, Yugoslavia was the result of the Corfu Declaration, as a project of the Serbian Parliament in exile and the Serbian royal Karađorđević dynasty, who became the Yugoslav royal dynasty. The country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and it was commonly referred to at the time as the Versailles state. Later, the government renamed the country leading to the first official use of Yugoslavia in 1929, on 6 January 1929 King Alexander I suspended the constitution, banned national political parties, assumed executive power and renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions and he imposed a new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I, Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia. He decided to abolish Yugoslavias historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas, the banovinas were named after rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance, the effect of Alexanders dictatorship was to further alienate the non-Serbs from the idea of unity. During his reign the flags of Yugoslav nations were banned, Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul

16.
Croatian War of Independence
–
In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the Homeland War and also as the Greater-Serbian Aggression. In Serbian sources, War in Croatia and War in Krajina are used, Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, but agreed to postpone it with the Brioni Agreement and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991. The JNA initially tried to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia by occupying all of Croatia, after this failed, Serb forces established the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina within Croatia. During that time, the RSK encompassed 13,913 square kilometers, in 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash and Operation Storm, which would effectively end the war in its favor. The remaining United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, the war ended with Croatian victory, as it achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning of the war, independence and preservation of its borders. 21–25% of Croatias economy was ruined, with an estimated US$37 billion in damaged infrastructure, lost output, a total of 20,000 people were killed in the war, and refugees were displaced on both sides. The Serb and Croatian governments began to cooperate with each other but tension remains, in part due to verdicts by the ICTY. Between 2008 and 2012, the ICTY had prosecuted Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markač, Čermak was acquitted outright, and the convictions of Gotovina and Markač were later overturned by an ICTY Appeals Panel. The International Court of Justice dismissed Croatia and Serbia genocide claims in 2015, the Court reaffirmed that serious crimes against civilians had taken place, but ruled that specific genocidal intent was not present. From 1967 to 1972 in Croatia and 1968 and 1981 protests in Kosovo, nationalist doctrines, the suppression by the state of nationalists is believed to have had the effect of identifying nationalism as the primary alternative to communism itself and made it a strong underground movement. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist states in Eastern Europe towards the end of the Cold War, in Yugoslavia, the national communist party, officially called the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, had lost its ideological potency. SR Slovenia and SR Croatia wanted to move towards decentralization, the rhetoric was approved by the Serbian political leadership, and accused the Croatian leadership of being blindly nationalistic when it objected. In 1989, political parties were allowed and a number of them had been founded, including the Croatian Democratic Union, led by Franjo Tuđman, who later became the first president of Croatia. In January 1990, the League of Communists broke up on ethnic lines, with the Croatian, at the congress, Serbian delegates accused the Croatian and Slovene delegates of supporting separatism, terrorism and genocide in Kosovo. The Croatian and Slovene delegations, including most of their ethnic Serb members, eventually left in protest, January 1990 also marked the beginning of court cases being brought to Yugoslavias Constitutional Court on the matter of secession. The first was the Slovenian Constitutional Amendments case after Slovenia claimed the right to unilateral secession pursuant to the right of self-determination, the Constitutional Court ruled that secession from the federation was only permitted if there was the unanimous agreement of Yugoslavias republics and autonomous provinces. On 4 March 1990,50,000 Serbs rallied at Petrova Gora, and shouted negative remarks aimed at Tuđman, chanted This is Serbia, the first free elections in Croatia and Slovenia were scheduled for a few months later. The first round of elections in Croatia were held on 22 April, the HDZ based its campaign on greater sovereignty for Croatia, fueling a sentiment among Croats that only the HDZ could protect Croatia from the aspirations of Milošević towards a Greater Serbia

17.
Bosnian War
–
The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following a number of violent incidents in early 1992, the war is commonly viewed as having started on 6 April 1992, the war ended on 14 December 1995. The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia and this was rejected by the political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs, who had boycotted the referendum. The Croats also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian, Events such as the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre later became iconic of the conflict. After the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, NATO intervened in 1995 with Operation Deliberate Force targeting the positions of the Army of the Republika Srpska, which proved key in ending the war. The war was brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia, Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio and were finalised on 21 November 1995. According to a report compiled by the UN, and chaired by M, the report echoed conclusions published by a Central Intelligence Agency estimate in 1995. By early 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had convicted 45 Serbs,12 Croats and 4 Bosniaks of war crimes in connection with the war in Bosnia, the most recent estimates suggest that around 100,000 people were killed during the war. Over 2.2 million people were displaced, making it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II, in addition, an estimated 12, 000–20,000 women were raped, most of them Bosniak. There is debate over the date of the Bosnian War. Mulaj reports that Misha Glenny gives a date of 22 March, Tom Gallagher gives 2 April, while Mary Kaldor and Laura Silber, philip Hammond claimed that the most common view is that the war started on 6 April 1992. The Sijekovac killings of Serbs took place on 26 March and the Bijeljina massacre on 1–2 April. Some Bosniaks consider the first casualties of the war to be Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić, the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia as a result of the weakening of the system at the end of the Cold War. In Yugoslavia, the national communist party, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, was losing its ideological potency, meanwhile, ethnic nationalism experienced a renaissance in the 1980s, after violence broke out in Kosovo. While the goal of Serbian nationalists was the centralisation of Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia aspired to the federalisation, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former Ottoman province, has historically been a multi-ethnic state. According to the 1991 census, 44% of the population considered themselves Muslim,32. 5% Serb and 17% Croat, with 6% describing themselves as Yugoslav. In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian Constitution which allowed the government of Serbia to dominate the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina

18.
Kosovo War
–
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 5 March 1998 until 11 June 1999. After attempts at a diplomatic solution failed, NATO intervened, justifying the campaign in Kosovo as a humanitarian war and this precipitated a mass expulsion of Kosovar Albanians as the Yugoslav forces continued to fight during the aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia. The war ended with the Kumanovo Treaty, with Yugoslav and Serb forces agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo to make way for an international presence, Kosovos borders did not precisely match the areas of ethnic Albanian settlement in Yugoslavia. Kosovos formal autonomy, established under the 1945 Yugoslav constitution, initially meant relatively little in practice, the secret police cracked down hard on nationalists. In 1956 a number of Albanians went on trial in Kosovo on charges of espionage, the threat of separatism was in fact minimal, as the few underground groups aiming for union with Albania had little political significance. Demaci himself was imprisoned in 1964 along with many of his followers, Yugoslavia underwent a period of economic and political crisis in 1969, as a massive government program of economic reform widened the gap between the rich north and poor south of the country. Student demonstrations and riots in Belgrade in June 1968 spread to Kosovo in November of the same year, however, Tito conceded some of the students demands—in particular, representative powers for Albanians in both the Serbian and Yugoslav state bodies and better recognition of the Albanian language. The University of Pristina was established as an independent institution in 1970, the lack of Albanian-language educational materials in Yugoslavia hampered the Albanisation of education in Kosovo, so an agreement was struck with Albania itself to supply textbooks. In 1974 Kosovos political status improved further when a new Yugoslav constitution granted a set of political rights. Along with Vojvodina, Kosovo was declared a province and gained many of the powers of a fully-fledged republic, power was still exercised by the Communist Party, but it was now devolved mainly to ethnic Albanian communists. Titos death on 4 May 1980 ushered in a period of political instability, worsened by growing economic crisis. The disturbances were quelled by the Presidency of Yugoslavia proclaiming a state of emergency, sending in riot police and the army, hard-liners instituted a fierce crackdown on nationalism of all kinds, Albanian and Serbian alike. Kosovo endured a heavy secret-police presence throughout most of the 1980s that ruthlessly suppressed any unauthorised nationalist manifestations, according to a report quoted by Mark Thompson, as many as 580,000 inhabitants of Kosovo were arrested, interrogated, interned or reprimanded. Thousands of these lost their jobs or were expelled from their educational establishments, during this time tension between the Albanian and Serbian communities continued to escalate. Such concerns did attract interest in Belgrade, stories appeared from time to time in the Belgrade media claiming that Serbs and Montenegrins were being persecuted. There was a perception among Serbian nationalists that Serbs were being driven out of Kosovo, in addition to all this, the worsening state of Kosovos economy made the province a poor choice for Serbs seeking work. Albanians, as well as Serbs, tended to favor their compatriots when hiring new employees, Kosovo was the poorest entity of Yugoslavia, the average per capita income was $795, compared with the national average of $2,635. 33 nationalist formations were dismantled by Yugoslav police, who sentenced some 280 people and seized arms caches, in Kosovo an increasingly poisonous atmosphere between Serbs and Albanians led to wild rumors being spread and otherwise trivial incidents being blown out of proportion

19.
2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia
–
There were also claims that the group ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country, though high-ranking NLA members have denied this. The conflict lasted throughout most of the year, although overall casualties remained limited to several individuals on either side. With it, the Yugoslav Wars had reached previously peaceful Macedonia, when it declared its independence on 8 September 1991, Macedonia was the only ex-Yugoslav republic that managed to secede non-violently from the federation. Because of this, Macedonia was considered one of the spots in the former-Yugoslavia. According to the International Crisis Group, there was nearly 3% growth in 1999, the second half of 2000 also saw steady growth, leading to a 5% GDP increase for the year. In January 2001, the government projected a surplus for the second year in a row. In 2000 the countrys emerging middle class began buying new cars, adding extensions to apartments, all of the successive Macedonian governments have included Albanian parties as coalition partners, and all problems were resolved through political dialogue. The mood was more or less optimistic until the beginning of 2001, the main cause for incidents though, was the repression by the Macedonian governments on the use of the Albanian language in Macedonia and the ban of the use of the Albanian flag. In 1997 the Constitutional Court forbade the use of Albanian flag, according to the 1994 census, there were 442,914 Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia, making up for about 22. 9% of the total population of the country. This makes them the largest ethnic minority alongside the majority Macedonian population of 1,288,330, the Albanians in Macedonia live in compact settlements in the western part of Macedonia, towards the border with Albania. They also live in the part, toward the border with Serbia and Kosovo, as well as in Skopje. They comprised the majority of the population in the towns of Tetovo, Gostivar, since independence, the Republic of Macedonia had been trying to focus on its internal affairs. The promotion of democracy and harmonised inter-ethnic relations had been defined as the goal of the new state. Since the first democratic elections in 1991, the Albanians in Macedonia used all constitutional and political opportunities to play a significant political role in the country, there were several Albanian political parties, whose behaviour and rhetoric, depended on whether they were in the governing coalition or not. Despite these political fluctuations, the Albanian parties were included as coalition partners in all post-communist Macedonian governments, the latter was manifested through state-funded television programs that were broadcast in the Albanian language. Also, there were Albanian newspapers, primary and high-school education was in the Albanian language, Albanian folklore festivals were organized, Albanians also had representatives in the institutions of the system. Regardless of the existing socio-economic and political status, the Albanians in Macedonia as a whole, Albanians also claimed to represent as much as 30% and even 40% of the countrys population, not the 22. 9% recorded in the official June 1994 census. In contrast, Macedonians asserted that the Albanian minority enjoyed sufficient rights, the Macedonians also remained suspicious of Albanian demands for autonomy, which they feared could lead to eventual secession or partition and unification with Albania or Kosovo

20.
Ethnic conflict
–
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, or economic and this final criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle. Ethnic conflict does not necessarily have to be violent, in a multi-ethnic society where freedom of speech is protected, ethnic conflict can be an everyday feature of plural democracies. For example, ethnic conflict might be a non-violent struggle for resources divided among ethnic groups, however, the subject of the confrontation must be either directly or symbolically linked with an ethnic group. In healthy multi-ethnic democracies, these conflicts are usually institutionalized and channeled through parliaments, assemblies and bureaucracies or through non-violent demonstrations, on the other hand, in authoritarian systems, ethnic minorities are often unable to express their grievances. Grievances are instead allowed to fester which might lead to long phases of silence followed by a violent outburst. Therefore, ethnic peace is an absence of violence, not an absence of conflict, another consequence is that violent ethnic rebellions often result in political rights for previously marginalized groups. Academic explanations of ethnic conflict generally fall into one of three schools of thought, primordialist, instrumentalist or constructivist, recently, several political scientists have argued for either top-down or bottom-up explanations for ethnic conflict. The causes of conflict are debated by political scientists and sociologists. Explanations generally fall into one of three schools of thought, primordialist, instrumentalist, and constructivist, more recent scholarship draws on all three schools. Primordialist accounts rely on strong ties of kinship among members of ethnic groups, donald L. Horowitz argues that this kinship makes it possible for ethnic groups to think in terms of family resemblances. Clifford Geertz, a scholar of primordialism, asserts that each person has a natural connection to perceived kinsmen. In time and through repeated conflict, essential ties to ones ethnicity will coalesce, ethnic groups will consequently always threaten the survival of civil governments but not the existence of nations formed by one ethnic group. Thus, when considered through a lens, ethnic conflict in multi-ethnic society is inevitable. A number of political scientists argue that the causes of ethnic conflict do not involve ethnicity per se but rather institutional, political. Moreover, primordial accounts do not account for the spatial and temporal variations in ethnic violence, if these ancient hatreds are always simmering under the surface and are at the forefront of peoples consciousness, then ethnic groups should constantly be ensnared in violence. However, ethnic violence occurs in sporadic outbursts, for example, Varshney points out that although Yugoslavia broke up due to ethnic violence in the 1990s, it had enjoyed a long peace of decades before the USSR collapsed. Therefore, some claim that it is unlikely that primordial ethnic differences alone caused the outbreak of violence in the 1990s

21.
War
–
War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, an absence of war is usually called peace. Warfare refers to the activities and characteristics of types of war. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to legitimate military targets. While some scholars see war as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, as concerns a belligerents losses in proportion to its prewar population, the most destructive war in modern history may have been the Paraguayan War. In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths, down from 72,000 deaths in 1990, in 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth biggest problem facing humanity for the next fifty years. Another byproduct of some wars is the prevalence of propaganda by some or all parties in the conflict, the word is related to the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren, meaning “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”. In German, the equivalent is Krieg, the Spanish, Portuguese, the scholarly study of war is sometimes called polemology, from the Greek polemos, meaning war, and -logy, meaning the study of. Studies of war by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the philosophy of war, asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Biological warfare, or germ warfare, is the use of weaponized biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, chemical warfare involves the use of weaponized chemicals in combat. Poison gas as a weapon was principally used during World War I. Civil war is a war between forces belonging to the nation or political entity. Conventional warfare is declared war between states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or see limited deployment, cyberwarfare involves the actions by a nation-state or international organization to attack and attempt to damage another nations information systems. Information warfare is the application of force on a large scale against information assets and systems, against the computers. Nuclear warfare is warfare in which weapons are the primary, or a major. War of aggression is a war for conquest or gain rather than self-defense, the earliest recorded evidence of war belongs to the Mesolithic cemetery Site 117, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death, since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare

22.
Insurgency
–
An insurgency is a rebellion against authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents. The nature of insurgencies is an ambiguous concept, where a revolt takes the form of armed rebellion, it may not be viewed as an insurgency if a state of belligerency exists between one or more sovereign states and rebel forces. When insurgency is used to describe a movements unlawfulness by virtue of not being authorized by or in accordance with the law of the land, criticisms of widely held ideas and actions about insurgency started to occur in works of the 1960s, they are still common in recent studies. Sometimes there may be one or more simultaneous insurgencies occurring in a country, the Iraq insurgency is one example of a recognized government versus multiple groups of insurgents. Other historic insurgencies, such as the Russian Civil War, have been rather than a straightforward model made up of two sides. During the Angolan Civil War there were two sides, MPLA and UNITA. At the same time, there was another separatist movement for the independence of the Cabinda region headed up by FLEC, if there is a rebellion against the authority and those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents, the rebellion is an insurgency. However, not all rebellions are insurgencies, as a state of belligerency may exist between one or more states and rebel forces. When insurgency is used to describe a movements unlawfulness by virtue of not being authorized by or in accordance with the law of the land, its use is neutral. The use of the term insurgency recognizes the political motivation of those who participate in an insurgency, if an uprising has little support, such a resistance may be described as brigandry and those who participate as brigands. The distinction on whether an uprising is an insurgency or a belligerency has not been as clearly codified as many other covered by the internationally accepted laws of war for two reasons. The dispute resulted in a compromise wording being included in the Hague Conventions known as the Martens Clause from the diplomat who drafted the clause. The United States Department of Defense defines it as this, An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a government through use of subversion. The United States counterinsurgency Field Manual, This definition does not consider the morality of the conflict, or the different viewpoints of the government and it is focused more on the operational aspects of the types of actions taken by the insurgents and the counter-insurgents. The Department of Defenses definition focuses on the type of violence employed towards specified ends and this characterization fails to address the argument from moral relativity that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. The French expert on Indochina and Vietnam, Bernard Fall, who wrote Street Without Joy, insurgency has been used for years in professional military literature. Under the British, the situation in Malaya as often called the Malayan insurgency or the Troubles in Northern Ireland, each had different specifics but shared the property of an attempt to disrupt the central government by means considered illegal by that government. North points out, however, that insurgents today need not be part of an organized movement, Some are networked with only loose objectives

23.
Serbs
–
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group that formed in the Balkans. The majority of Serbs inhabit the state of Serbia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. They form significant minorities in Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia, there is a large Serb diaspora in Western Europe, and outside Europe there are significant communities in North America and Australia. The Serbs share many traits with the rest of the peoples of Southeast Europe. They are predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christians by religion, the Serbian language is official in Serbia, co-official in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is spoken by the majority in Montenegro. The modern identity of Serbs is rooted in Eastern Orthodoxy and traditions, in the 19th century, the Serbian national identity was manifested, with awareness of history and tradition, medieval heritage, cultural unity, despite living under different empires. When the Principality of Serbia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, Orthodoxy became crucial in defining the national identity, instead of language which was shared by other South Slavs. The tradition of slava, the family saint feast day, is an important ethnic marker of Serb identity, the origin of the ethnonym is unclear. Serbia has among the tallest people in the world, after Montenegro and Netherlands, Slavs invaded and settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. Up until the late 560s their activity was raiding, crossing from the Danube, the Danube and Sava frontier was overwhelmed by large-scale Slavic settlement in the late 6th and early 7th century. What is today central Serbia was an important geo-strategical province, through which the Via Militaris crossed and this area was frequently intruded by barbarians in the 5th and 6th centuries. The numerous Slavs mixed with and assimilated the descendants of the indigenous population, numerous small Serbian states were created, located in modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. With the decline of the Serbian state of Duklja in the late 11th century, Raška separated from it, prince Stefan Nemanja conquered the neighbouring territories of Kosovo, Duklja and Zachlumia. The Nemanjić dynasty ruled over Serbia until the 14th century, over the next 140 years, Serbia expanded its borders. Its cultural model remained Byzantine, despite political ambitions directed against the empire, the medieval power and influence of Serbia culminated in the reign of Stefan Dušan, who ruled the state from 1331 until his death in 1355. Ruling as Emperor from 1346, his territory included Macedonia, northern Greece, Montenegro, when Dušan died, his son Stephen Uroš V became Emperor. With the death of two important Serb leaders in the battle, and with the death of Stephen Uroš that same year, hrebeljanović was subsequently accepted as the titular leader of the Serbs because he was married to a member of the Nemanjić dynasty. In 1389, the Serbs faced the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo on the plain of Kosovo Polje, both Lazar and Sultan Murad I were killed in the fighting

24.
Croats
–
Croats are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group at the crossroads of Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean Sea. Croats mainly live in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but are a recognized minority in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have migrated throughout Europe, evidence is rather scarce for the period between the 7th and 8th centuries, CE. Archaeological evidence shows population continuity in coastal Dalmatia and Istria, in contrast, much of the Dinaric hinterland appears to have been depopulated, as virtually all hilltop settlements, from Noricum to Dardania, were abandoned in the early 7th century. Although the dating of the earliest Slavic settlements is still disputed, the origin, timing and nature of the Slavic migrations remain controversial, however, all available evidence points to the nearby Danubian and Carpathian regions. Much uncertainty revolves around the circumstances of their appearance given the scarcity of literary sources during the 7th and 8th century Dark Ages. Traditionally, scholarship has placed the arrival of the Croats in the 7th century, as such, the arrival of the Croats was seen as a second wave of Slavic migrations, which liberated Dalmatia from Avar hegemony. However, as early as the 1970s, scholars questioned the reliability of Porphyrogenitus work, rather than being an accurate historical account, De Administrando Imperio more accurately reflects the political situation during the 10th century. The major basis for this connection was the similarity between Hrvat and inscriptions from the Tanais dated to the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, mentioning the name Khoroathos. Similar arguments have been made for an alleged Gothic-Croat link and they appear to have been based around Nin and Klis, down to the Cetina and south of Liburnia. Here, concentrations of the Old Croat culture abound, marked by very wealthy warrior burials dating to the 9th century CE. Other, distinct polities also existed near the Croat duchy and these included the Guduscans, the Narentines and the Sorabi who ruled some other eastern parts of ex-Roman Dalmatia. Also prominent in the territory of future Croatia was the polity of Prince Liutevid, however, soon, the Croats became the dominant local power in northern Dalmatia, absorbing Liburnia and expanding their name by conquest and prestige. In the south, while having periods of independence, the Naretines also merged with Croats later under control of Croatian Kings, with such expansion, Croatia soon became dominant power and absorb other polities between Frankish, Bulgarian and Byzantine empire. Each vied for control of the Northwest Balkan regions, nevertheless, two independent Slavic dukedoms emerged sometime during the 9th century, the Croat Duchy and Principality of Lower Pannonia. Having been under Avar control, lower Pannonia became a march of the Carolingian Empire around 800, aided by Vojnomir in 796, the first named Slavic Duke of Pannonia, the Franks wrested control of the region from the Avars before totally destroying the Avar realm in 803. After the death of Charlemagne in 814, Frankish influence decreased on the region, the Frankish margraves sent armies in 820,821 and 822, but each time they failed to crush the rebels. Aided by Borna the Guduscan, the Franks eventually defeated Ljudevit, for much of the subsequent period, Savia was probably directly ruled by the Carinthian Duke Arnulf, the future East Frankish King and Emperor

25.
Albanians
–
Albanians are an ethnic group, native to Albania, Kosovo and neighboring countries. The term is used to refer to the citizens of the Republic of Albania. Ethnic Albanians speak the Albanian language and more than half of ethnic Albanians live in Albania, a large Albanian population lives in the Republic of Macedonia and Italy, with smaller Albanian populations located in Serbia and Montenegro. The majority of Albanians are nominally Muslims, and a minority are nominally Christians, during the 17th and 18th century Albanians in large numbers converted to Islam, often to escape higher taxes levied on Christian subjects. As Muslims, some Albanians attained important political and military positions within the Ottoman Empire, Albania gained its independence in 1912 and between 1945–1992, Albanians lived under a repressive communist regime. Between the 11th and 18th centuries, sizable numbers of Albanians migrated from the area of contemporary Albania to escape either various socio-political difficulties and/or the Ottoman conquest. Another population, who became the Arbëreshë settled in southern Italy and form the oldest continuous Albanian diaspora producing influential, smaller populations dating to migrations during the 18th century are located on Croatias Dalmatian coast and scattered communities across southern Ukraine. The Albanian diaspora also exists in a number of other countries, one of these is located in Turkey. Due to the Ottoman legacy, smaller populations of Albanians also exist in Egypt, in Western countries, a large and influential Albanian population exists in the United States formed from continuous emigration dating back to the 19th century. The Albanians and their country Albania have been identified by many ethnonyms, from these ethnonyms, names for Albanians were also derived in other languages that were or still are in use. The term for a people located in the area of contemporary Albania is first encountered in the works of Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates. He referred to them as Albanoi having taken part in a revolt against the Byzantine Empire in 1043 and these references have been disputed as to whether they refer to Albanians in an ethnic sense. A later reference to Albanians from the same Attaliates regarding the participation of Albanians in a rebellion around 1078 is undisputed. In later Byzantine usage, the terms Arbanitai and Albanoi with a range of variants were used interchangeably, the first reference to the Albanian language dates to the latter 13th century. The ethnonym Albanian has been hypothesized to be connected to and stem from the Albanoi, linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, of which other words such as alps is derived from. Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar, the Albanian language was referred to as Arbnisht and Arbërisht. Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym, one, derived from the etymology from the Albanian word for eagle, in Albanian folk etymology, this word denotes a bird totem, dating from the times of Skanderbeg as displayed on the Albanian flag. The other is within scholarship that connects it to the verb to speak from the Latin excipere, in this instance the Albanian endonym like Slav and others would originally have been a term connoting those who speak

26.
Serbian nationalism
–
Serbian nationalism or Serbdom asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Serbs. Serbian nationalists supported a centralized Yugoslav state that guaranteed the unity of the Serbs while resisting efforts to decentralize the state, the St. Vitus Day Constitution adopted by Yugoslavia in 1920, consolidated the country as a centralized state under the Serbian Karađorđević monarchy. Serbian nationalists opposed the agreement on the grounds that it weakened the unity of Serbdom, asserting its importance to Yugoslavia with the slogan Strong Serbdom, the Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić is commonly considered the father of Serbian nationalism. Karadžić created a definition of the Serbs that included all speakers of the Štokavian dialect regardless of their religious affiliation or geographical origin. However Karadžić acknowledged the right of some Štokavian-speaking peoples to call themselves names other than Serbs, ilija Garašanin was another early proponent of Serbian nationalism and a proponent of a Greater Serbia - a Serbian state whose borders were extended to include all Serbs in the Balkan region. Serbian nationalists associated with a centralist vision of Yugoslavia as opposed to a confederal or federal state as advocated by non-Serbs, in the aftermath King Alexander discarded the St. Vitus Day Constitution, proclaimed a royal dictatorship, and officially renamed the country Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In response, Serbian nationalists founded the Serb Cultural Club which attacked the new Yugoslav nationalism under the motto of Strong Serbdom, Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by the Axis Powers during World War II, with Nazi Germany establishing puppet states throughout occupied Yugoslavia. Serbian nationalism rose in a militant response by the Chetnik forces of Draža Mihailović against both the Axis forces and the communist Yugoslav Partisans, the war saw the rise of an extreme anti-Muslim variant of Serbian nationalism practised by the Chetniks who massacred Bosnian Muslims during the war. In the aftermath of World War II and the seizure of power by the Yugoslav Partisans, the new regime repressed nationalism of any culture that was deemed to be a threat to the state. Serbian nationalism then developed during the 1960s by intellectuals such as Dobrica Ćosić and challenged the state-sponsored policies of Yugoslavism and Brotherhood, Titos later expulsion of the nationalist-leaning Serbian communist official Aleksandar Ranković in the 1960s was perceived as an attack on Serbian nationalism. After the ousting of Ranković, Serbian nationalist intellectuals increasingly began viewing Yugoslavia as an experience for the Serb nation. Serbian nationalism escalated following the death of Tito in 1980, Serbian intellectuals began breaking a number of taboos—for example, Branko Petranović identified Mihailović, the Chetnik rival of Tito during World War II as being an important anti-fascist. Dobrica Ćosić joined other Serb political writers in writing the highly controversial Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, the Memorandum was harshly condemned by the ruling League of Communists of Yugoslavia as well as the government of Serbia led by Ivan Stambolić. Members who would later support Serbian nationalism chose follow the party line and it means the liquidation of the current socialist system of our country, that is the disintegration after which there is no survival for any nation or nationality. Titos policy of brotherhood and unity, is the only basis on which Yugoslavia’s survival can be secured. However, amidst the rising nationalist sentiment in Serbia in 1987, to these groups, Miloševićs agenda reminded them of the Serb hegemonic political affairs of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Rankovićs policies. Long live Serbia—death to Albanians. and Montenegro is Serbia, in the same month, Milošević began efforts designed to destabilize the governments in Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina to allow him to install his followers in those republics. Efforts to spread the cult of personality of Milošević into the republic of Macedonia began in 1989 with slogans, graffiti, and songs glorifying Milošević spreading in the republic

27.
United Nations
–
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

28.
Greater Serbia
–
The initial movements main ideology was to unite all Serbs into one state, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of many surrounding countries. The Greater Serbian ideology includes claims to territories in modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, in some historical forms, Greater Serbian aspirations also include parts of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Romania. Its inspiration comes from the memory and existence of the relatively large, the term Serbian imperialism has been used mainly for the aspirations of the Kingdom of Serbia. In the early 20th century, all parties of the Kingdom of Serbia planning to create a Balkan Federation. From the creation of the Principality until the First World War and this event, together with the Austro-Hungarian Annexation of Bosnia, frustrated the majority of Serbian politicians, since there was still a large number of Serbs remaining out of the Kingdom. The Serbian Royal family of Karađorđević was set to rule this new state, called Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, that would be renamed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. Initially, the apologists of the Greater Serbia doctrine felt satisfied, during the inter-war period, the majority of Serbian politicians defended a strong centralised country, while their opponents demanded major autonomy for the regions. This tension grew to a point that led to the creation of opposing nationalistic organisations that culminated in the assassination of the King Alexander I in 1934. During the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, these grew to become one of the most brutal civil wars that occurred in World War II. After the war, victorious Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito became the head of state of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980, during this period the country was divided in six republics. In 1976, within the Socialist Republic of Serbia two autonomous provinces, SAP Kosovo and SAP Vojvodina, were created, during this period, most of the Greater Serbian ideology followers were incarcerated as accused of betrayal, or exiled. Within the rest of the Serbian population, the vast majority became strong supporters of this new Non-Aligned Yugoslavia, the concept of Pan-Serbism espoused by these three was not an imperialist one, based upon the notion of Serbian conquest, but a rationalist one. They all believed that rationalism would overcome the barriers of religion that separated the Slavs into Orthodox Christians, Catholics, the idea of a unification and homogenization by force was propounded by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš. Roots of the Greater Serbian ideology are often traced back to Serbian minister Ilija Garašanins Načertanije, from the 1850s onward, this concept has had a significant influence on Serbian politics. A plan must be constructed which does not limit Serbia to her present borders, the work claimed lands that were inhabited by Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Hungarians and Croats as part of Greater Serbia. Garašanins plan also included methods of spreading Serbian influence in the claimed lands and he proposed ways to influence Croats and Slavic Muslims, who Garašanin regarded as Serbs of Catholic faith and Serbs of Islamic faith. The most notable Serbian linguist of the 19th century, Vuk Karadžić, was a follower of the view that all south Slavs that speak the Shtokavian dialect were Serbs, speaking the Serbian language. More precisely, Karadžić was the shaper of modern secular Serbian national consciousness, with the goal of incorporating all indigenous Shtokavian speakers into one, there are at least 5 million people who speak the same language, but by religion they can be split into three groups

29.
Irredentism
–
It is often advocated by nationalist and pan-nationalist movements and has been a feature of identity politics and cultural and political geography. An area that may be subjected to a claim is sometimes called an irredenta. Not all irredentas are necessarily involved in irredentism, the word was coined in Italy from the phrase Italia irredenta. A common way to express a claim to adjacent territories on the grounds of historical or ethnic association is by using the adjective Greater as a prefix to the country name and this conveys the image of national territory at its maximum conceivable extent with the country proper at its core. The use of Greater does not always convey an irredentistic meaning, some states formalize their irredentist claims by including them in their constitutional documents, or through other means of legal enshrinement. The Afghan border with Pakistan, known as the Durand Line, was agreed to by Afghanistan, all Afghan governments of the past century have declared, with varying intensity, a long-term goal of re-uniting all Pashtun-dominated areas under Afghan rule. The Argentine government has maintained a claim over the Falkland Islands since 1833 and it considers the archipelago part of the Tierra del Fuego Province, along with South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The 2009 constitution of Bolivia states that the country has a right over the territory that gives it access to the Pacific Ocean. This is understood as territory that Bolivia and Peru ceded to Chile after the War of the Pacific, the preamble to the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China states, Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the Peoples Republic of China. It is the lofty duty of the entire Chinese people, including our compatriots in Taiwan, the PRC claim to sovereignty over Taiwan is generally based on the theory of the succession of states, with the PRC claiming that it is the successor state to the Republic of China. While the official name of the state remains Republic of China, Article 1 of the Constitution of the Union of the Comoros begins, The Union of the Comoros is a republic, composed of the autonomous islands of Mohéli, Mayotte, Anjouan, and Grande Comore. Mayotte, geographically a part of the Comoro Islands, was the island of the four to vote against independence from France in the referendum held December 22,1974. Mayotte is currently a department of the French Republic, all of the European colonies on the Indian subcontinent which were not part of the British Raj have been annexed by India since it gained its independence from the British Empire. An example of such territories was the 1961 Indian annexation of Goa, an example of annexation of a territory from the British Raj was the Indian integration of Junagadh. Akhand Bharat, literally Undivided India, is an irredentist call to reunite Pakistan, the call for Akhand Bharat has often been raised by mainstream Indian nationalistic cultural and political organizations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The region of Kashmir in northwestern India has been the issue of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, the Kashmir conflict. Multiple wars have been fought over the issue, the first one immediately upon independence, to stave off a Pakistani and tribal invasion, Maharaja Hari Singh of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession with India. Kashmir has remained divided in three parts, administered by India, Pakistan and China, since then, however, on the basis of the instrument of accession, India continues to claim the entire Kashmir region as its integral part

30.
Greater Albania
–
However, the concept of a Greater Albania, as in greater than Albania within its 1913 borders, was implemented only under the Italian and Nazi German occupation of the Balkans during World War II. In a survey carried out by United Nations Development Programme, published in March 2007, 96% said they wanted Kosovo to become independent within its present borders. Greater Albania is a term used mainly by the Western scholars, politicians, another term used by Albanians, is Albanian national reunification. Prior to the Balkan wars of the beginning of the 20th century, the Albanian independence movement emerged in 1878 with the League of Prizren whose goal was cultural and political autonomy for ethnic Albanians inside the framework of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottomans were not prepared to grant The Leagues demands, Ottoman opposition to the Leagues cultural goals eventually helped transform it into an Albanian national movement. Indeed, this unification was realized after the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, the Albanian fascists claimed in May 1941 that nearly all the Albanian populated territories were united to Albania. Between May 1941 and September 1943, Benito Mussolini placed nearly all the inhabited by ethnic Albanians under the jurisdiction of an Albanian quisling government. That included the region of Kosovo, parts of the Republic of Macedonia, the KLA found great moral and financial support among the Albanian diaspora. KLA Commander Sylejman Selimi insisted, By 1998 the KLA’s operations had evolved into a significant armed insurrection, according to the report of the USCRI, the Kosovo Liberation Army. Attacks aimed at trying to cleanse Kosovo of its ethnic Serb population, the UNHCR estimated the figure at 55,000 refugees who had fled to Montenegro and Central Serbia, most of whom were Kosovo Serbs. Its campaign against Yugoslav security forces, police, government officers, the war ended with the Kumanovo Treaty, with Yugoslav forces agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo to make way for an international presence. The Albanian question in the Balkan peninsula is in part the consequence of the decisions made by Western powers in late 19th, the Treaty of San Stefano and the 1878 Treaty of Berlin assigned Albanian inhabited territories to other States, hence the reaction of the League of Prizren. One theory posits that the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the degree to which different groups are working towards. and what efforts such groups are undertaking in order to achieve a Greater Albania is disputed. There seems no evidence that more than a few unrepresentative extremist groups are working towards this cause. However, they want the human rights of the Albanian ethnic populations in Republic of Macedonia, Serbia. An excellent example is the relationship between the Republic of Montenegro and the support towards the integration of the Albanian population in Republic of Macedonia. In 2000, the then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that the community would not tolerate any efforts towards the creation of a Greater Albania. Vetëvendosje obtained 12. 66% of the votes in an election in December 2010, in 2012, the Red and Black Alliance was established as a political party in Albania, the core of its program is national unification of all Albanians in their native lands

31.
Greater Croatia
–
Greater Croatia is a term applied to certain currents within Croatian nationalism. In one sense, it refers to the scope of the Croatian people. In the political sense, though, the term refers to an irredentist belief in the equivalence between the scope of the Croatian people and that of the Croatian state. The foundations of the concept of Greater Croatia are laid in late 17th and he was the first ideologist of Croatian nation who proclaimed that all Slavs are Croats. His works were used to legitimize expansionism of the Habsburg Empire to the east, Illyria as Slavic territory projected by Vitezović would eventually incorporate not only most of the Southeastern Europe but also parts of Central Europe such as Hungary. Vitezović defines territory of Croatia which, besides Illyria and all Slavic populated territory, because the Kingdom of Hungary was so large, Hungary attempted processes of Magyarisation on its constituent territories. As a reaction, Ljudevit Gaj led the creation of the Illyrian movement and this movement aimed to establish Croatian national presence within Austria-Hungary through linguistic and ethnic unity among South Slavs. This was the first and most prominent Pan-Slavic movement in Croatian history, an early proponent of Croatian-based Pan-Slavism was the politician, Count Janko Drašković. In 1832, he published his Dissertation to the joint Hungarian-Croatian Diet, likewise, the influential Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, although a supporter of the Habsburg Monarchy, nonetheless advocated merging the Kingdom of Dalmatia with Croatia. The concept of a Greater Croatia was developed further by Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik, unlike Strossmayer and the proponents of the Illyrian movement, HSP advocated a united Croatia that stood independently of a Pan-Slavic umbrella state. Ensuing events surrounding the ideology culminated in the World War II conflict between the Independent State of Croatia and its opponents including Chetnik Serbs and Communists of all ethnicities. Croatia was united into a territorial unit and was provided territories of parts of present-day Vojvodina. The first modern development of a Greater Croatia came about with the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, following occupation of the country by Axis forces in 1941, Slavko Kvaternik, deputy leader of the Ustaše proclaimed the establishment of the NDH. The Ustaša, an ultranationalist and fascist movement founded in 1929 supported a Greater Croatia that would extend to the River Drina, Ante Pavelić, the Ustašes Poglavnik had been in negotiations with Fascist Italy since 1927. These negotiations included Pavelić supporting Italys annexation of its territory in Dalmatia in exchange for Italy supporting an independent Croatia. In addition, Mussolini offered Pavelić the right for Croatia to annex all of Bosnia, the most recent expression of a Greater Croatia arose in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia. At the beginning of the Bosnian war, the Croats and Bosniaks formed an alliance against the Yugoslav Peoples Army, the main Croat army was the Croatian Defence Council, and the Bosniak was the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In November 1991, the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia was established as an autonomous Croat territorial unit within Bosnia, the leaders of Herzeg-Bosnia called it a temporary measure during the conflict with the Serb forces and claimed it had no secessionary goal

32.
Croat-Bosniak conflict
–
It is often referred to as a war within a war because it was part of the larger Bosnian War. In the beginning, Bosniaks and Croats fought in an alliance against the Yugoslav Peoples Army and the Army of Republika Srpska, the first armed incidents occurred in October 1992 in central Bosnia between local Croat and Bosniak forces. Their military alliance held out until early 1993 when their cooperation fell apart, the Croat–Bosniak War escalated in central Bosnia and soon spread to Herzegovina, with most of the fighting taking place in those two regions. The Bosniaks were organized in the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war generally consisted of sporadic conflicts with numerous ceasefires signed in the course of it. However, it was not a war between the Bosniaks and Croats and they remained allied in other regions. Several peace plans were proposed by the community during the war. On 23 February 1994 a ceasefire was reached and an agreement ending the hostilities was signed in Washington on 18 March 1994, both sides committed atrocities against civilians and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted high-ranking Croat and Bosniak officials for war crimes. In cases against Herzeg-Bosnia political and military leaders, the ICTY ruled that Croatia had overall control over the HVO, Izetbegović was elected as the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Jure Pelivan, of the HDZ, was elected as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia, Momčilo Krajišnik, of the SDS, was elected as the speaker of Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1990 and 1991, Serbs in Croatia and in Bosnia, Serbs used the well equipped Yugoslav Peoples Army in defending these territories. As early as September or October 1990, the JNA had begun arming Bosnian Serbs, by March 1991, the JNA had distributed an estimated 51,900 firearms to Serb paramilitaries and 23,298 firearms to the SDS. In early 1991, the leaders of the six republics began a series of meetings to solve the crisis in Yugoslavia, the Serbian leadership favoured a federal solution, whereas the Croatian and Slovenian leadership favoured an alliance of sovereign states. Izetbegović proposed a federation on 22 February, where Slovenia and Croatia would maintain loose ties with the 4 remaining republics. Shortly after that, he changed his position and opted for a sovereign Bosnia as a prerequisite for such a federation, on 25 March 1991, Croatian president Franjo Tuđman met with Serbian president Slobodan Milošević in Karađorđevo, reportedly to discuss the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 6 June, Izetbegović and Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov proposed a confederation between Croatia, Slovenia and a federation of the other four republics, which was rejected by Milošević. The HDZ BiH and the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina denounced the agreement, calling it an anti-Croat pact, although initially welcoming the initiative, Izetbegović also dismissed the agreement. From July 1991 to January 1992, during the Croatian War of Independence, the Croatian government began arming Croats in the Herzegovina region as early as October or November 1991, expecting that the Serbs would spread the war into Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also helped arm the Bosniak community, by late 1991 about 20,000 Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly from the Herzegovina region, enlisted in the Croatian National Guard

33.
Kosovo
–
Kosovo is a disputed territory and partially recognised state in Southeastern Europe that declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo is landlocked in the central Balkan Peninsula, with its strategic position in the Balkans, it serves as an important link in the connection between central and south Europe, the Adriatic Sea, and Black Sea. Its capital and largest city is Pristina, and other urban areas include Prizren, Pejë. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, the Republic of Macedonia to the southeast, Montenegro to the west, while Serbia recognises administration of the territory by Kosovos elected government, it still continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. In antiquity, the Dardanian Kingdom, and later the Roman province of Dardania was located in the region, the area was inhabited by several ancient Illyrian tribes. In the Middle Ages, it was part of the Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian Empires, Kosovo was the core of the medieval Serbian state and it has been the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church from the 14th century when its status was upgraded into a patriarchate. After being part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the early 20th century, the war ended with a military intervention of NATO, which forced the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, which became a UN protectorate under UNSCR1244. On 17 February 2008 Kosovos Parliament declared independence and it has since gained diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state by 111 UN member states, Taiwan, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Cook Islands and Niue. Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo as a state, although with the Brussels Agreement of 2013 it has accepted the legitimacy of Kosovar institutions, the entire region is commonly referred to in English simply as Kosovo and in Albanian as Kosova or Kosovë. The name of the plain was applied to the Kosovo Province created in 1864, Albanians refer to Kosovo as Dardania, the name of a Roman province located in Central Balkans that was formed in 284 AD which covered the territory of modern Kosovo. The name is derived from the Albanian word dardha/dardā which means pear, the former Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova had been an enthusiastic backer of a Dardanian identity and the Kosovan flag and presidential seal refer to this national identity. However, the name Kosova remains more widely used among the Albanian population, the official conventional long name of the state is Republic of Kosovo, as defined by the Constitution of Kosovo, and is used to represent Kosovo internationally. This arrangement, which has dubbed the asterisk agreement, was agreed in an 11-point arrangement agreed on 24 February 2012. By the independence declaration in 2008, its long name became Republic of Kosovo. In prehistory, the succeeding Starčevo culture, Vinča culture, Bubanj-Hum culture, the area in and around Kosovo has been inhabited for nearly 10,000 years. During the Neolithic age, Kosovo lay within the area of the Vinča-Turdaş culture which is characterised by West Balkan black, bronze and Iron Age tombs have been found in Metohija. However, life during the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age is not confirmed yet, therefore, until arguments of Paleolithic and Mesolithic man are confirmed, Neolithic man, respectively the Neolithic sites are considered as the chronological beginning of population in Kosovo. From this period until today Kosovo has been inhabited, and traces of activities of societies from prehistoric, ancient, whereas, in some archaeological sites, multilayer settlements clearly reflect the continuity of life through centuries

34.
Albania
–
Albania, officially the Republic of Albania, is a country in Southeastern Europe. It has a population of 3.03 million as of 2016, Tirana is the nations capital and largest city, followed by Durrës and Vlorë. The country has a coastline on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea to the west. Albania is less than 72 km from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which connects the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea. In antiquity, the area of Albania was home to several Illyrian, Thracian. After the Illyrian Wars, it part of the Roman provinces of Dalmatia, Macedonia and Moesia Superior. In 1190, the first Albanian state, the Principality of Arbanon was established by archon Progon in the region of Krujë, the territory of Albania was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, of which it remained part of for the next five centuries. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, following the Balkan Wars, the Kingdom of Albania was invaded by Italy in 1939, which formed Greater Albania, before becoming a Nazi German protectorate in 1943. The following year, a socialist Peoples Republic was established under the leadership of Enver Hoxha, Albania experienced widespread social and political transformations in the communist era, as well as isolation from much of the international community. In 1991, the Socialist Republic was dissolved and the Republic of Albania was established, Albania is a democratic and developing country with an upper-middle income economy. The service sector dominates the economy, followed by the industrial. After the fall of communism in Albania, Free-market reforms have opened the country to foreign investment, especially in the development of energy, Albania has a high HDI and provides universal health care system and free primary and secondary education to its citizens. Albania is a member of the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and it is also an official candidate for membership in the European Union. Albania is one of the members of the Energy Community, Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. It is home to the largest lake in Southern Europe and one of the oldest lakes in Europe, Albania is the Medieval Latin name of the country. The name may have a continuation in the name of a settlement called Albanon and Arbanon. During the Middle Ages, the Albanians called their country Arbëri or Arbëni, Albanians today call their country Shqipëri. As early as the 17th century the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria, the two terms are popularly interpreted as Land of the Eagles and Children of the Eagles

35.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan

36.
War crime
–
A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. The concept of war crimes emerged at the turn of the century when the body of customary international law applicable to warfare between sovereign states was codified. Moreover, trials in national courts during this period further helped clarify the law, following the end of World War II, major developments in the law occurred. Numerous trials of Axis war criminals established the Nuremberg principles, such as notion that war crimes constituted crimes defined by international law, additionally, the Geneva Conventions in 1949 defined new war crimes and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over such crimes. The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire in 1474 was the first international war crimes trial, and also of command responsibility. He was convicted and beheaded for crimes that he as a knight was deemed to have a duty to prevent, although he had argued that he was only following orders. In 1654 a Major Connaught was tried at Chester Assizes and hanged for his part in the massacre of villagers in the church at the village of Boughton, twelve villagers were smoked out, stripped naked and had their throats cut. He was hanged at the scene of the crime having been convicted of striking a blow to the head of John Fowler with an axe. The Geneva Conventions are four related treaties adopted and continuously expanded from 1864 to 1949 that represent a legal basis, accordingly, states retain different codes and values with regard to wartime conduct. Some signatories have routinely violated the Geneva Conventions in a way which either uses the ambiguities of law or political maneuvering to sidestep the laws formalities and principles. Three conventions were revised and expanded with the one added in 1949, First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded. Second Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick, third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Protocol II relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts. Protocol III relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem, a small number of German military personnel of the First World War were tried in 1921 by the German Supreme Court for alleged war crimes. The modern concept of war crime was further developed under the auspices of the Nuremberg Trials based on the definition in the London Charter that was published on August 8,1945. Along with war crimes the charter also defined crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, on July 1,2002, the International Criminal Court, a treaty-based court located in The Hague, came into being for the prosecution of war crimes committed on or after that date. Several nations, most notably the United States, China, Russia, the United States still participates as an observer. Article 12 of the Rome Statute provides jurisdiction over the citizens of non-contracting states in the event that they are accused of committing crimes in the territory of one of the state parties

37.
Ethnic cleansing
–
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. The forces applied may be forms of forced migration, intimidation, as well as mass murder. An antecedent to the term is the Greek word andrapodismos, which was used in ancient texts to describe atrocities that accompanied Alexander the Greats conquest of Thebes in 335 BC. In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs, the Poles, the French, a 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups. During World War II, the euphemism čišćenje terena was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes. Viktor Gutić, a senior Ustaše leader, was one of the first Croatian nationalists on record to use the term as a euphemism for committing atrocities against Serbs. This process was repeated on a larger scale in 1939–41. During The Holocaust, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was cleansed of Jews, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, the term cleansing was used in Israeli military documents dating to the 1948 Israeli–Arab war, referring to the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term ethnic cleansing to describe the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. At around the time, the Yugoslav media used it to describe what they alleged was an Albanian nationalist plot to force all Serbs to leave Kosovo. It was widely popularized by the Western media during the Bosnian War, the first recorded mention of its use in the Western media can be traced back to an article in The New York Times dated 15 April 1992, in a quote by an anonymous Western diplomat. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes, furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention. As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies, in the words of Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, thnic cleansing defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation, at the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory. The term ethnic cleansing has frequently employed to refer to the events in Bosnia. General Assembly resolution 47/121 referred in its Preamble to the abhorrent policy of ethnic cleansing and it can only be a form of genocide within the meaning of the Convention, if it corresponds to or falls within one of the categories of acts prohibited by Article II of the Convention. The expulsion of a group or part of a group does not in itself suffice for genocide, there is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing. There are however situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, timothy V. Waters argues that if similar circumstances arise in the future, this precedent would allow the ethnic cleansing of other populations under international law

38.
Crimes against humanity
–
The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials. The law of crimes against humanity has developed through the evolution of customary international law. Crimes against humanity are not codified in a convention, although there is currently an international effort to establish such a treaty. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during peace or war and they are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. The term crimes against humanity is potentially ambiguous because of the ambiguity of the word humanity, the history of the term shows that the latter sense is intended. The term crimes against humanity was used by George Washington Williams, in a pamphlet published in 1890, the preamble of the two Conventions referenced the “laws of humanity” as an expression of underlying inarticulated humanistic values. The term is part of what is known as the Martens Clause, on May 24,1915, the Allied Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing a crime against humanity. At the conclusion of the war, a war crimes commission recommended the creation of a tribunal to try violations of the laws of humanity. However, the US representative objected to references to law of humanity as being imprecise and insufficiently developed at that time, the drafters of this document were faced with the problem of how to respond to the Holocaust and grave crimes committed by the Nazi regime. A traditional understanding of war crimes gave no provision for crimes committed by a power on its own citizens, the legal basis for the trial was established by the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that was proclaimed on 19 January 1946. The tribunal convened on May 3,1946, and was adjourned on November 12,1948, in the Tokyo Trial, Crimes against Humanity was not applied for any suspect. This was because the values of lives of Asian civilians were considered to be less than the lives of Caucasian or Jewish civilians. Prosecutions related to the Nanking Massacre were categorised as infringements upon the Laws of War, War crimes charges against more junior personnel were dealt with separately, in other cities throughout Far East Asia, such as the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal and the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials. A panel of eleven judges presided over the IMTFE, one each from victorious Allied powers, the different types of crimes which may constitute crimes against humanity differs between definitions both internationally and on the domestic level. The Charter of the United Nations makes actions of the General Assembly advisory to the Security Council, in regard to apartheid in particular, the UN General Assembly has not made any findings, nor have apartheid-related trials for crimes against humanity been conducted. The statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, there are eleven international texts defining crimes against humanity, but they all differ slightly as to their definition of that crime and its legal elements. In 2008, the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative was launched to address this gap in international law, the Initiative represents the first concerted effort to address the gap that exists in international criminal law by enumerating a comprehensive international convention on crimes against humanity. On July 30,2013, the United Nations International Law Commission voted to include the topic of crimes against humanity in its program of work

39.
War rape
–
Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. It is distinguished from sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service and it also covers the situation where girls and women are forced into prostitution or sexual slavery by an occupying power. During war and armed conflict, rape is used as a means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy. Rape can also be recognized as genocide and/or ethnic cleansing when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, There are other international legal instruments to prosecute perpetrators but this has occurred as late as the 1990s. The terms rape, sexual assault and sexual violence are used interchangeably. There is no accepted definition of war rape. Lawlessness during wars and civil conflicts can create a culture of impunity towards human rights abuses of civilians, among some armies, looting of civilian areas is considered a way for soldiers to supplement their often meager income, which can be unstable if soldiers are not paid on time. Some militias that cannot afford to pay their troops promote pillaging as a compensation for victory. Dara Kay Cohen argues that some groups use gang rape to bond soldiers and create a sense of cohesion within units. Amnesty International argues that in modern conflicts rape is used deliberately as a military strategy, gayatri Chakravorty Spivak characterizes group rape perpetrated by the conquerors as a metonymic celebration of territorial acquisition. Some refugees and internally displaced people experience human trafficking for sexual or labour due to the breakdown of economies. In some conflicts, rape is used as a means of extracting information to force women, susan Brownmiller was the first historian to attempt an overview of rape in war with documentation and theory. Brownmillers thesis is that War provides men with the perfect backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women. Kelly Dawn Askin observes that increasingly, the victims of war are civilians, an estimated forty-five million plus civilians died during World War II. Male and female civilians may be subject to torture, but many studies show that war rape is more frequently perpetrated on women than men. This may be due to the reluctance of men to forward with accusations of being raped, and also an institutional bias amongst NGOs. However rape against women is also underrerported, perpetrators of sexual violence against women and children commonly include not only enemy civilians and troops but also allied and national civilians and even comrades in arms. The victims of war rape are usually civilians, a category first recognized in the 19th century, although war rape of women is documented throughout history, laws protecting civilians in armed conflict have tended not to recognize sexual assault on women

40.
Bosnian genocide
–
The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs targeted Muslim Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. In the 1990s, several authorities asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide and these included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three convictions for genocide in German courts. In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that the Serbian policies of aggression, to date, only the Srebrenica massacre has been found to be a genocide by the ICTY, a finding upheld by the ICJ. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia judged that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was genocide, in the unanimous ruling Prosecutor v. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, in 2007, the court found insufficient evidence to conclude on alleged genocidal intent. The killings outlined above may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the case of Tolimir, the International Criminal Tribunal has concluded that genocide was committed in the enclave of Žepa, outside of Srebrenica. The genocidal intent of the Bosnian Serb leadership can be inferred from all the evidence, including the evidence set out in paragraphs 238 -245. On 26 February 2007, however, in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. However, Karadžić and Mladić are charged, separately, with, Count 1, Genocide. – Municipalities, Bratunac, Foča, Ključ, Kotor Varoš, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica, initially dismissed by the Trial Chamber on 28 June 2012, this count was unanimously reinstated on 11 July 2013 by the Appeals Chamber. Count 3, Persecutions on Political, Racial and Religious Grounds and they are also charged with Murder, Deportation, Inhumane Acts, Spreading Terror among Civilians, Unlawful Attacks on Civilians, and Taking of Hostages. On 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice found Serbia to be innocent of genocide as committed at Srebrenica in July 1995. His acquittal means that, to date, no official or army officer of Serbia-Montenegro, on 30 May 2013, the ICTY acquitted and ordered the immediate release of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, two close aides of Slobodan Milosevic. Stanisic was the Chief of the Serbian State Security Service while Simatovic was in charge of the operations arm of the State Security Service. On 27 June 2005, during the 109th Congress, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. The resolution, as amended, was passed with a majority of 370 – YES votes,1 – NO vote. The resolution is a bipartisan measure commemorating 11 July 1995 –2005, the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. The Senate version, S. Res.134, was sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith with 8 cosponsors and was agreed to in the Senate on 22 June 2005 without amendment and with unanimous consent. S. S. A trial took place before the International Court of Justice, following a 1993 suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbia, moreover, the Court found that Serbia has not committed genocide nor conspired to or incited the commission of genocide

41.
Genocide
–
Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people in whole or in part. The hybrid word genocide is a combination of the Greek word génos, the United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The term genocide was coined in a 1943 book responding to mass murder of populations in the 20th century, in 1943, Raphael Lemkin created the term genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. The book describes the implementation of Nazi policies in occupied Europe, the term described the systematic destruction of a nation or people, and the word was quickly adopted by many in the international community. The word genocide is the combination of the Greek prefix geno-, Lemkin defined genocide as follows, Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. The preamble to the 1948 Genocide Convention notes that instances of genocide have taken place throughout history. Lemkins lifelong interest in the murder of populations in the 20th century was initially in response to the killing of Armenians in 1915. He dedicated his life to mobilizing the international community, to together to prevent the occurrence of such events. In a 1949 interview, Lemkin said I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times and it happened to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action. In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention, the CPPCG was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and came into effect on 12 January 1951. The USSR argued that the Conventions definition should follow the etymology of the term, and may have feared greater international scrutiny of its own Great Purge. Other nations feared that including political groups in the definition would invite international intervention in domestic politics. ”The conventions purpose and scope was later described by the United Nations Security Council as follows, In 2007 the European Court of Human Rights, noted in its judgement on Jorgic v. In the same judgement the ECHR reviewed the judgements of several international and municipal courts judgements, in the case of Onesphore Rwabukombe the German Supreme Court adhered to its previous judgement and didnt follow the narrow interpretation of the ICTY and the ICJ. The phrase in whole or in part has been subject to discussion by scholars of international humanitarian law. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found in Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic – Trial Chamber I – Judgment – IT-98-33 ICTY8 that Genocide had been committed. The aim of the Genocide Convention is to prevent the destruction of entire human groups. The Appeals Chamber goes into details of other cases and the opinions of respected commentators on the Genocide Convention to explain how they came to this conclusion. The judges continue in paragraph 12, The determination of when the part is substantial enough to meet this requirement may involve a number of considerations

42.
International Center for Transitional Justice
–
ICTJ officially opened its doors in New York City on March 1,2001, and within six months was operating in more than a dozen countries, as requests for assistance poured in. A collection of materials assembled by the ICTJ covering the years 1981–2008 is housed at the Duke University library, mendez, President Emeritus of ICTJ David Tolbert, President of ICTJ Pablo de Greiff, Director of Research ICTJ Homepage

43.
Balkans
–
The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania

44.
Western Balkans
–
The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania

45.
Central Europe
–
Central Europe lies between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. The concept of Central Europe is based on a historical, social and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of strategic awakening, with such as the CEI, Centrope. While the regions economy shows high disparities with regard to income, elements of unity for Western and Central Europe were Roman Catholicism and Latin. According to Hungarian historian Jenő Szűcs, foundations of Central European history at the first millennium were in connection with Western European development. The keyword of Western social development after millennium was the spread of liberties and autonomies in Western Europe and these phenomena appeared in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries. There were self-governments of towns, counties and parliaments, in 1335 under the rule of the King Charles I of Hungary, the castle of Visegrád, the seat of the Hungarian monarchs was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary. They agreed to cooperate closely in the field of politics and commerce, in the Middle Ages, countries in Central Europe adopted Magdeburg rights. Before 1870, the industrialization that had developed in Western and Central Europe, even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia, for example, remained rural and agricultural. The concept of Central Europe was already known at the beginning of the 19th century, an example of that-time vision of Central Europe may be seen in J. Partsch’s book of 1903. On 21 January 1904, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany, another time, the term Central Europe became connected to the German plans of political, economic and cultural domination. The bible of the concept was Friedrich Naumann’s book Mitteleuropa in which he called for a federation to be established after the war. The concept failed after the German defeat in World War I, the revival of the idea may be observed during the Hitler era. According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927 the Central European countries included, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, italy and Yugoslavia are not considered by the author to be Central European because they are located mostly outside Central Europe. The author use both Human and Physical Geographical features to define Central Europe, the interwar period brought new geopolitical system and economic and political problems, and the concept of Central Europe took a different character. The centre of interest was moved to its eastern part – the countries that have appeared on the map of Europe, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, however, the conflict of interests was too big and neither Little Entente nor Intermarium ideas succeeded. The interwar period brought new elements to the concept of Central Europe, after the war, the Eastern part of Central Europe was placed at the centre of the concept

Breakup of Yugoslavia
–
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, in addition, two autonomous provinces were e

1.
Serbian President Slobodan Milošević 's unequivocal desire to uphold the unity of Serbs, a status threatened by each republic breaking away from the federation, in addition to his opposition to the Albanian authorities in Kosovo, further inflamed ethnic tensions.

Yugoslav People's Army
–
The Yugoslav Peoples Army, also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army or simply by the initialism JNA, was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The origins of the JNA can be found in the Yugoslav Partisan units of World War II, after the Yugoslav Partisans liberated the country from the Axis Powers, that date was offici

1.
Yugoslav Army soldiers at the Sinai, as part of the UNEF, 1957

3.
Yugoslav-built M-84 tank

4.
The Yugoslav G-4 SOKO Super Galeb

Ten-Day War
–
The Ten-Day War or the Slovenian Independence War, also the Weekend War was a brief war of independence that followed the Slovenian declaration of independence on 25 June 1991. It was fought between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Yugoslav Peoples Army and it lasted from 27 June 1991 until 6 July 1991, when the Brioni Accords were signed.

1.
Yugoslav map of operations during the Ten-Day War

2.
Slovenian Territorial defence military drills held in March 1991

3.
Memorial to Slovenian helicopter pilot Toni Mrlak in Ljubljana

4.
Photo of ambushed YPA tanks near Nova Gorica, on the border with Italy

Battle of Vukovar
–
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav Peoples Army, supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats, Serbs, as Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbias President

1.
The Vukovar water tower, 2010. Heavily damaged in the battle, the tower has been preserved as a symbol of the conflict.

Siege of Dubrovnik
–
The JNA attacks and bombardment of Dubrovnik, including the Old Town—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—culminated on 6 December 1991. Fighting between the HV and the Yugoslav troops east of Dubrovnik gradually died down, the siege and a naval blockade by the Yugoslav Navy caused the deaths of between 82 and 88 Croatian civilians and 194 Croatian militar

1.
Bombardment of the Old Town of Dubrovnik

2.
JNA positions overlooking Dubrovnik, 9 December 1991. Three 9K11 Malyutka anti-tank guided missiles in a firing position are visible.

3.
Map of the JNA advance to Dubrovnik in 1991

4.
Daily routine at Stradun during the war

Srebrenica massacre
–
The killings were perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The Scorpions, a unit from Serbia, who had been part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991. In April 1993 the United Nations had declared the besieged enclave of Srebrenica—in the Drina Valley of northeastern Bosnia—a

1.
Some of the more than 6,100 gravestones at the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide

2.
Srebrenica Genocide Memorial Stone at Potočari

3.
Burial of 610 identified Bosniaks in 2005

4.
Burial of 465 identified Bosniaks in 2007

Sarajevo
–
Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its current administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area, including Sarajevo Canton and East Sarajevo is home to 688,384 inhabitants, nestled within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated alo

Siege of Sarajevo
–
The Siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. The siege lasted three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a longer than the Siege of Leningrad. From there they assaulted the city with artillery, tanks and small arms, from 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. The Bosnian gove

Slovenia
–
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and it covers 20,273 square kilometers and has a population of 2.0

Croatia
–
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands.

1.
Branimir Inscription

2.
Flag

3.
Tanais Tablet B, name Khoroáthos highlighted

4.
The walls of Dubrovnik helped to defend the city since Middle Ages until the 1991–1992 siege.

Bosnia and Herzegovina
–
Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, in short, often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe located on the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city, in the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and the

4.
Bosniak resistance against the Austro-Hungarian military intervention in 1878

Serbia
–
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia num

1.
Clay figure from Vinča culture, 4000–4500 BC, British Museum

2.
Flag

3.
Felix Romuliana, UNESCO World Heritage Site

4.
Temnić inscription, is one of the oldest records of Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic script from the territory of Serbia.

FYR Macedonia
–
Macedonia, officially the Republic of Macedonia, is a country in the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the states of the former Yugoslavia. A landlocked country, the Republic of Macedonia has borders with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, the countrys geography is defined prima

1.
Heraclea Lyncestis, a city founded by Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC: ruins of the Byzantine "Small Basilica"

2.
Flag

3.
Nikola Karev, president of the short-lived Kruševo Republic during the Ilinden Uprising

4.
Avtonomna Makedonia periodical, Belgrade, 1905

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
–
Covering an area of 255,804 km², the SFRY was bordered with Italy to the west, Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east and Albania and Greece to the south. In addition, it included two autonomous provinces within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina, the SFRY traces back to 29 June 1943 when the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberati

1.
U.S.-Yugoslavia summit, 1978

2.
Flag

3.
The parliament building of Bosnia and Herzegovina burns amid the Yugoslav wars.

4.
Vukovar water tower during the Siege of Vukovar. The tower came to symbolize the town's resistance to Serb forces.

Yugoslavia
–
Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe during most of the 20th century. The Serbian royal House of Karađorđević became the Yugoslav royal dynasty, Yugoslavia gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris. The country was named after the South Slavic peoples and constituted their first union, follow

1.
Partisan Stjepan Filipović shouting "Death to fascism, freedom to the people!" shortly before his execution

2.
Marshal Josip Broz Tito

Croatian War of Independence
–
In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the Homeland War and also as the Greater-Serbian Aggression. In Serbian sources, War in Croatia and War in Krajina are used, Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, but agreed to postpone it with the Brioni Agreement and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991. The JNA initiall

1.
Clockwise from top left: the central street of Dubrovnik, the Stradun, in ruins during the Siege of Dubrovnik; the damaged Vukovar water tower, a symbol of the early conflict, flying the Croatian tricolour; soldiers of the Croatian Army preparing to destroy a Serbian tank; the Vukovar Memorial Cemetery; a Serbian T-55 tank destroyed on the road to Drniš

2.
President Franjo Tuđman wanted Croatia to disengage from Yugoslavia.

3.
Map of the strategic offensive plan of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in 1991 as interpreted by the US Central Intelligence Agency

4.
The Croatian military eased their equipment shortage by seizing the JNA barracks in the Battle of the Barracks.

Bosnian War
–
The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following a number of violent incidents in early 1992, the war is commonly viewed as having started on 6 April 1992, the war ended on 14 December 1995. The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia and this was rejected by the politi

1.
Alija Izetbegović during his visit to the United States in 1997.

2.
The executive council building burns after being hit by artillery fire in Sarajevo May 1992; Ratko Mladić with Army of Republika Srpska officers; a Norwegian UN soldier in Sarajevo.

3.
Heavily damaged apartment buildings near Vrbanja bridge in the Grbavica district on the left bank of the Miljacka river.

4.
Manjača camp, 1992

Kosovo War
–
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 5 March 1998 until 11 June 1999. After attempts at a diplomatic solution failed, NATO intervened, justifying the campaign in Kosovo as a humanitarian war and this precipitated a mass expulsion of Kosovar Albanians as the Yugoslav forces continued to fight during the aerial bombardment

1.
Clockwise from top-left: Yugoslav general staff headquarters damaged by NATO air strikes; a Yugo buried under rubble caused by NATO air strikes; memorial to local KLA commanders; a USAF F-15E taking off from Aviano Air Base

2.
Equipment of 72nd Special Brigade Yugoslav Army in the 1999 Kosovo War.

3.
A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the aft missile deck of USS Gonzalez on March 31, 1999

4.
A U.S. F-117 Nighthawk taxis to the runway before taking off from Aviano Air Base, Italy, on March 24, 1999

2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia
–
There were also claims that the group ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country, though high-ranking NLA members have denied this. The conflict lasted throughout most of the year, although overall casualties remained limited to several individuals on either side. With it, the Yugoslav Wars had reached previously peace

1.
Albanian UÇK insurgents hand over their weapons to U.S. Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Kosovo, 1999.

2.
2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia

3.
Reservist units of the Macedonian police in Raduša (on the border with Kosovo), a month before the battle for Raduša.

4.
A detachment of the Macedonian Special Police Unit for Fast Interventions near Kumanovo, 2001.

Ethnic conflict
–
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, or economic and this final criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle. Ethnic conflict does not necessarily have to be violent, in a multi-ethnic society where freedom of speech is prot

1.
A Chechen man praying during the battle of Grozny in 1995 (photography by Mikhail Evstafiev).

2.
A refugee camp for displaced Tutsi in Zaire following the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

War
–
War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, an absence of war is usually called peace. Warfare refers to the activities and characteristics of types of war. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to legitimate military targets. While some scholars see war

1.
The War by Tadeusz Cyprian (1949), a photograph in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw showing ruins of Warsaw's Napoleon Square in the aftermath of World War II.

2.
Mural of War (1896), by Gari Melchers

3.
Ruins of Guernica (1937). The Spanish Civil War was one of Europe's bloodiest and most brutal civil wars.

4.
Japanese samurai attacking a Mongol ship, 13th century

Insurgency
–
An insurgency is a rebellion against authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents. The nature of insurgencies is an ambiguous concept, where a revolt takes the form of armed rebellion, it may not be viewed as an insurgency if a state of belligerency exists between one or more sovereign states and rebel forces

1.
The so-called kuruc were armed anti- Habsburg rebels in Royal Hungary between 1671 and 1711.

Serbs
–
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group that formed in the Balkans. The majority of Serbs inhabit the state of Serbia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. They form significant minorities in Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia, there is a large Serb diaspora in Western Europe, and outside Europe there are significant communities in North America and A

2.
The 1389 Battle of Kosovo is considered as one of the most influential events in the history of the Serbs.

3.
Serbian Army during its retreat towards Albania; more than a million Serbs died during World War I.

4.
Serbian civilians interned in Jasenovac concentration camp, 1942

Croats
–
Croats are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group at the crossroads of Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean Sea. Croats mainly live in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but are a recognized minority in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, ma

1.
Goran Ivanišević

2.
The current flag of Croatia, including the current coat of arms.

3.
The Coming of the Croats to the Adriatic by Oton Iveković.

4.
Coronation of King Tomislav by Oton Iveković.

Albanians
–
Albanians are an ethnic group, native to Albania, Kosovo and neighboring countries. The term is used to refer to the citizens of the Republic of Albania. Ethnic Albanians speak the Albanian language and more than half of ethnic Albanians live in Albania, a large Albanian population lives in the Republic of Macedonia and Italy, with smaller Albanian

2.
Albanians in Europe.

3.
Et'hem Bey Mosque in Tirana

Serbian nationalism
–
Serbian nationalism or Serbdom asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Serbs. Serbian nationalists supported a centralized Yugoslav state that guaranteed the unity of the Serbs while resisting efforts to decentralize the state, the St. Vitus Day Constitution adopted by Yugoslavia in 1920, consolidated the country as a cen

1.
The white double-headed eagle of the Nemanjić dynasty of Serbia of the 12th to 14th centuries, the basis of the Serbian eagle.

2.
Monument to Karađorđe in Belgrade. Karađorđe led the Serbian Revolution that sought to liberate Serbia from rule by the Ottoman Empire.

4.
Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia (1989–1997), President of FR Yugoslavia (1997–2000).

United Nations
–
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the

1.
1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the United Nations' original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states.

2.
Flag

3.
The Chilean delegation signing the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945

4.
Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

Greater Serbia
–
The initial movements main ideology was to unite all Serbs into one state, claiming, depending on the version, different areas of many surrounding countries. The Greater Serbian ideology includes claims to territories in modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, in some historical forms, Greater Serbian aspirations also include parts

1.
Miloš Milojević 's 19th-century map which depicts most of the South Slavs as Serbs.

2.
Map of Greater Serbia as defined by the Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag hypothetical boundary to the west; one of the visions of the borders of Greater Serbia as advocated by Vojislav Šešelj.

3.
Greater Serbian aspirations before the Balkan wars 1912–1913, according to the Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars.

4.
Vojislav Šešelj, president of the Serbian Radical Party and one of the staunchest advocates of Greater Serbia, is currently on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Irredentism
–
It is often advocated by nationalist and pan-nationalist movements and has been a feature of identity politics and cultural and political geography. An area that may be subjected to a claim is sometimes called an irredenta. Not all irredentas are necessarily involved in irredentism, the word was coined in Italy from the phrase Italia irredenta. A c

1.
A painting from 1887 depicting a child being taught about the "lost" province of Alsace-Lorraine in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War that is depicted in the colour black on a map of France.

2.
Bolivian irredentism over losses in the War of the Pacific (1879-1884): "What once was ours, will be ours once again", and "Hold on rotos (Chileans), because here come the Colorados of Bolivia"

3.
Italian territory claims by Italian irredentism activists in the 1930s, including Nice, Ticino and Dalmatia in green, Maltese in red, and later also claimed Corsica in purple.

4.
A map distributed by ethnic Macedonian nationalists circa 1993. Shows the geographical region of Macedonia split with barbed wire between the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece.

Greater Albania
–
However, the concept of a Greater Albania, as in greater than Albania within its 1913 borders, was implemented only under the Italian and Nazi German occupation of the Balkans during World War II. In a survey carried out by United Nations Development Programme, published in March 2007, 96% said they wanted Kosovo to become independent within its pr

1.
The four Ottoman vilayets (Kosovo, Scutari, Monastir and Janina), proposed as Albanian vilayet, by the League of Prizren in 1878.

Greater Croatia
–
Greater Croatia is a term applied to certain currents within Croatian nationalism. In one sense, it refers to the scope of the Croatian people. In the political sense, though, the term refers to an irredentist belief in the equivalence between the scope of the Croatian people and that of the Croatian state. The foundations of the concept of Greater

1.
Map of a Greater Croatia in a 1939 article of the Ustase Hrvatski Domobran newspaper associated with the Ustase organization of the same name, Hrvatski Domobran, that sought recruitment of Croat emigres in Argentina and other countries. This article rejects the Cvetković–Maček Agreement and the borders that it provided to Croatia as insufficient.

Croat-Bosniak conflict
–
It is often referred to as a war within a war because it was part of the larger Bosnian War. In the beginning, Bosniaks and Croats fought in an alliance against the Yugoslav Peoples Army and the Army of Republika Srpska, the first armed incidents occurred in October 1992 in central Bosnia between local Croat and Bosniak forces. Their military allia

1.
A war-ravaged street in Mostar during the conflict.

2.
Bodies of people killed in April 1993 around Vitez. (Photograph provided courtesy of the ICTY)

Kosovo
–
Kosovo is a disputed territory and partially recognised state in Southeastern Europe that declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo is landlocked in the central Balkan Peninsula, with its strategic position in the Balkans, it serves as an important link in the connection between central and south Europe, t

1.
The Sinan Pasha Mosque and old stone bridge in Prizren

2.
Flag

3.
German soldiers set fire to a Serbian village near Kosovska Mitrovica, circa 1941.

4.
U.S. Marines set up a road block near the village of Koretin, 16 June 1999

Albania
–
Albania, officially the Republic of Albania, is a country in Southeastern Europe. It has a population of 3.03 million as of 2016, Tirana is the nations capital and largest city, followed by Durrës and Vlorë. The country has a coastline on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea to the west. Albania is less than 72 km from Italy, across

3.
After serving the Ottoman Empire for 20 years Skanderbeg deserted and began a rebellion (helmet of George Kastrioti preserved in Vienna).

4.
Köprülü Mehmed Pasha was the most effective and influential Ottoman Grand Vizier of Albanian origin.

World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directl

1.
Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad

2.
The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

3.
Adolf Hitler at a German National Socialist political rally in Weimar, October 1930

4.
Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War

War crime
–
A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. The concept of war crimes emerged at the turn of the century when the body of customary international law applicable to warfare between sovereign states was codified. Moreover, trials in national courts during this per

1.
Criminology and penology

2.
A picture taken by the Polish Underground of Nazi Secret Police rounding up Polish intelligentsia at Palmiry near Warsaw in 1940 for mass execution (German AB-Aktion in occupied Poland).

3.
Suchow, China, 1938. A ditch full of the bodies of Chinese civilians, killed by Japanese soldiers.

4.
HRW wrote that the Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen that began on 26 March 2015 had conducted airstrikes in apparent violation of the laws of war.

Ethnic cleansing
–
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous. The forces applied may be forms of forced migration, intimidation, as well as mass murder. An antecedent to the term is the Greek word andrapodismos, which was u

1.
The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops in 1822.

2.
1941. Serbs who have been expelled from their homes, march out of town carrying large bundles.

3.
The 12th anniversary exhibition of ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia, which was held in Tbilisi in 2005.

4.
Mass expulsion of Poles in 1939 as part of the German ethnic cleansing of western Poland annexed to the Reich.

Crimes against humanity
–
The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials. The law of crimes against humanity has developed through the evolution of customary international law. Crimes against humanity are not codified in a convention, although there is currently an international effort to establish such a treaty. Unlike war crimes, crim

1.
Criminology and penology

2.
Nuremberg Trials. Defendants in the dock. The main target of the prosecution was Hermann Göring (at the left edge on the first row of benches), considered to be the most important surviving official in the Third Reich after Hitler 's death.

3.
The defendants at the Tokyo International Tribunal. General Tojo was one of the main defendants, and is in the centre of the middle row

4.
The current headquarters of the ICC in The Hague

War rape
–
Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. It is distinguished from sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service and it also covers the situation where girls and women are forced into prostitution or sexual slavery by an occupying power. During war and armed conflict, rape is used as a means o

1.
Part of the monument to the Condottieri Giovanni dalle Bande Nere.

2.
Some of the delegates to the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict held in 2014

3.
Psychosocial workers with International Rescue Committee (IRC) help rape survivors in South Kivu DRC

4.
A sculpture in Bangladesh depicting the rape of a Bengali woman by a Pakistani soldier in 1971.

Bosnian genocide
–
The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs targeted Muslim Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. In the 1990s, several authorities asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide and these included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three

1.
A memorial to the victims of Srebrenica and other towns in eastern Bosnia

2.
Public hearing at the ICJ.

3.
The Martyrs' Memorial Cemetery Kovači for victims of the war in Stari Grad.

4.
The Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potočari

Genocide
–
Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people in whole or in part. The hybrid word genocide is a combination of the Greek word génos, the United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The term ge

1.
Buchenwald concentration camp was not an extermination camp, though it was responsible for a vast number of deaths

4.
The cemetery at the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery to Genocide Victims

International Center for Transitional Justice
–
ICTJ officially opened its doors in New York City on March 1,2001, and within six months was operating in more than a dozen countries, as requests for assistance poured in. A collection of materials assembled by the ICTJ covering the years 1981–2008 is housed at the Duke University library, mendez, President Emeritus of ICTJ David Tolbert, Presiden

1.
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)

Balkans
–
The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In

1.
The Balkan Peninsula, as defined by the Danube - Sava - Kupa line

2.
The Peninsula's most extensive definition, bordered by water on three sides and connected with a line on the fourth

3.
Panorama of Stara Planina. Its highest peak is Botev at a height of 2,376 m.

Western Balkans
–
The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In

1.
The Balkan Peninsula, as defined by the Danube - Sava - Kupa line

2.
The Balkan states according to Oxford University Profesor R. J. Crampton

3.
The Peninsula's most extensive definition, bordered by water on three sides and connected with a line on the fourth

4.
Panorama of Stara Planina. Its highest peak is Botev at a height of 2,376 m.

Central Europe
–
Central Europe lies between Eastern Europe and Western Europe. The concept of Central Europe is based on a historical, social and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of strategic awakening, with such as the CEI, Centrope. While the regions economy shows high disparities with regard to income, elements of unity for Western and

1.
Certain and disputed borders of Great Moravia under Svatopluk I (AD 870–894)

2.
Central Europe according to The World Factbook (2009), Encyclopædia Britannica, and Brockhaus Enzyklopädie (1998)

1.
Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Britain attempting to keep the lid on the simmering cauldron of imperialist and nationalist tensions in the Balkans to prevent a general European war. They were successful in 1912 and 1913 but did not succeed in 1914.

2.
Nazım Pasha, the chief of staff of the Ottoman army was assassinated by Young Turks due to his failure.

3.
Bulgarian forces waiting to start their assault on Adrianople

4.
Territorial changes as a result of the First Balkan war, as of April 1913 showing the prewar agreed line of expansion between Serbia and Bulgaria

1.
Clockwise from the top: The aftermath of shelling during the Battle of the Somme, Mark V tanks cross the Hindenburg Line, HMS Irresistible sinks after hitting a mine in the Dardanelles, a British Vickers machine gun crew wears gas masks during the Battle of the Somme, Albatros D.III fighters of Jagdstaffel 11

2.
Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the Austrian annexation in 1908.

3.
This picture is usually associated with the arrest of Gavrilo Princip, although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander.

1.
Beginning in 1821, the Greek War of Independence began as a rebellion by Greek nationalists against the ruling Ottoman Empire.

2.
The growth of a national identity was expressed in a variety of symbolic ways, including the adoption of a national flag. Pictured, a Scottish Union Flag in the 1704 edition of The Present State of the Universe.

3.
Nationalist and liberal pressure led to the European revolutions of 1848

2.
1891 certificate of identity of the Imperial Government of China. The case to which this document pertains is representative of the many Chinese deportation case files within the records of the US District court, Los Angeles County, California.

3.
Ethnic Germans being deported from the Sudetenland in the aftermath of World War II

4.
Striking miners and others being deported at gunpoint from Lowell, Arizona, on July 12, 1917, during the Bisbee Deportation.

2.
Croatian Brigadier General Krešimir Ćosić and US Army Lieutenant General Wesley Clark discussing the Siege of Bihać on 29 November 1994

3.
Order of the RSK Supreme Defence Council to evacuate civilians from the Knin area

4.
Tuđman and Šušak visiting Knin Fortress on 6 August. Officers in the photo include Lieutenant General Gotovina and Brigadiers Ivan Korade and Damir Krstičević (commanders of the 7th and 4th Guards Brigades) on Tuđman's right, and Brigadiers Rahim Ademi and Ante Kotromanović on Šušak's left.

1.
A falsified image (left) with a caption stating a " Serbian boy whose whole family was killed by Bosnian Muslims ", published by Večernje novosti during the Bosnian War. The image was originally a painting (right) made in 1888 by Serbian artist Uroš Predić. The original title is " Siroče na majčinom grobu " (Orphan at mother's grave).

3.
A JNA soldier reads the propaganda of " Pobjeda ", in which the newspaper describes Ustaše hiding behind the walls of Dubrovnik.

4.
A Serb flyer used during the war, calling upon all citizens of Dubrovnik to cooperate with the JNA against the Croats' "vampired fascism and Ustašism "

4.
The Garden of Peace, UNESCO headquarters, Paris. Donated by the Government of Japan, this garden was designed by American-Japanese sculptor artist Isamu Noguchi in 1958 and installed by Japanese gardener Toemon Sano.

1.
Map of military operations in eastern Slavonia, September 1991 – January 1992.

2.
A bomb dropped on Vukovar Hospital by a Yugoslav Air Force jet on 4 October 1991 penetrated several floors to the basement. The patient occupying the bed directly beneath escaped uninjured. The damage has been preserved as a memorial to the battle.

3.
The Ovčara farm in 2005, prior to the opening of the Ovčara Memorial Centre